Olympic champions Tebogo and Wanyoyi triumph in Diamond League

Lausanne. Two young Africans who won the Olympic gold medal in Paris, Kenyan Emmanuel Wanyonyi (800 metres) and Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo (200 metres), took centre stage on Thursday at the Diamond League athletics meeting in Lausanne.

Wanyonyi (20 years old) also won his event, almost breaking the world record, which he was twenty-hundredths away from.

With a time of 1 minute, 41 seconds and 11 hundredths, Wanyonyi equalled Denmark’s Wilson Kipketer as the second best in history in the double lap of the track, only behind Kenyan David Rudisha, whose world record is 1:40.91.

Canadian Olympic runner-up Marco Arop (1:41.72) took second place while Frenchman Gabriel Tual (1:42.30) was third.

In the 200 metres, Tebogo, the new king of the half-lap race, confirmed his good form despite having barely trained since his Olympic gold medal and won in Switzerland with 19.64.

He beat two Americans, Erriyon Knighton (19.78) and Fred Kerley (19.86).

In the 110-metre hurdles, the current star of the event, the American Grant Holloway, suffered his first defeat of the year when he came second (13.14), beaten by the Jamaican Rasheed Broadbell (13.10).

In the 400m hurdles, the favourite, Dutchwoman Femke Bol (52.25), did her job, beating three Jamaican rivals and improving the meeting record.

Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen won the 1,500 metres with a time of 3 minutes, 27 seconds and 83 hundredths, failing to improve his European record (3:26.73).

He was at least able to take revenge on American Cole Hocker (3:29.85), Olympic gold medalist in Paris, in a final in which Ingebrigtsen collapsed in the last lap and finished fourth, without a medal. The Nordic athlete was able to redeem himself a few days later in the French capital by winning the Olympic title in the 5,000 metres.

Other Olympic champions from Paris, such as Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh (high jump) and Greece’s Miltiadis Tentoglou (long jump), also emerged victorious in Lausanne.

In the 100-meter hurdles, Puerto Rican Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, who lost her Olympic title in Paris and had to settle for the bronze medal, emerged victorious from this meeting in Switzerland.

The South Carolina-born hurdler finished with a time of 12.35 seconds, her best this season, to beat American Grace Stark and Jamaican Ackera Nugent, both with a time of 12.38.