It is fortunate that Olympic gold medallists don’t tend to travel with their awards. Indeed, with five Olympic champions, six world champions and twelve reigning European champions set to compete in Paris, the bill for excess baggage at the airport would be rather frightening. On that list is Faith Kipyegon, who will once again be hoping to take some great strides forward on the tartan track of the City of Light. Double Olympic champion and four-time world champion, the Kenyan really made her mark on the historic edition of the Wanda Diamond League Meeting de Paris 2023, shattering the world 5,000 m record in a time of 14’05’’20. However, this year her talent will be showcased in the capital’s 1,500 m sprint race, another distance in which she holds the fastest ever time of 3’49’’11. After her 3’53’’98 time at altitude during the Kenyan Trials, she’ll be seeking to hone her fitness in Paris, in the run-up to the Olympic Games.
With the imminent arrival of more prestigious names, there are four more champions from the Tokyo Olympics whose presence has already been confirmed: world pole vault record holder, Swede Mondo Duplantis (6.24 m), who stars on the meeting poster; German long jumper Malaika Mihambo, who bagged the European title in Rome with a sumptuous jump of 7.22 m; the elegant American discus thrower, Valarie Allman, who cruised through the qualifiers in the formidable Trials with a throw of 70.89 m; and finally Polish athlete Wojciech Nowicki, a man who excels at major championships as evidenced by his victory in June’s hammer final at the European championships in Rome.
A royal duel in the long jump
The kings and queens of the Worlds in Budapest will also give Charléty its due. Kipyegon and Duplantis naturally rank among them, alongside four other athletes, one of whom is preparing to challenge the reigning Olympic champion: Serbian Ivana Vuleta (ex-Spanovic) in the long jump, whose summer return to competition is eagerly awaited. Another athlete to watch among those who were crowned in Hungary: Ukrainian Yaroslava Mahuchikh in the high jump, who’s posted the year’s world leading jump of 2.04 m, Bahraini Winfred Yavi in the 3,000 m steeplechase, who will once again cross swords with world record holder Beatrice Chepkoech, and Dominican Marileidy Paulino in the 400 m, whose discretion tends to make us forget about the blisteringly quick time of 48’’76 she ran in Budapest.
Finally, twelve ‘fresh out of the box’ European champions in Rome are set to hit the track in Paris. French athletes Alice Finot (3,000 m steeplechase) and Gabriel Tual (800 m), will get the chance to test their prowess against the world’s best athletes: the previously mentioned Malaika Mihambo (long jump), Mondo Duplantis (pole vault), Yaroslava Mahuchikh (high jump) and Wojciech Nowicki (hammer throw), as well as Switzerland’s Timothé Mumenthaler (200 m), Poland’s Natalia Kaczmarek (400 m), Ireland’s Ciara Mageean (1,500 m), Croatia’s Sandra Elkasevic (ex-Perkovic, in the discus), Italy’s Lorenzo Ndele Simonelli (110 m hurdles) and Czech Jakub Vadlejch (javelin).
dos Santos to guest-star
And though he’s neither an Olympic champion nor a reigning world champion, it would be impossible not to conclude this list of top athletes without mentioning the arrival of Alison dos Santos. Securing gold at the Worlds in Eugene in 2022, in what has to be one of the most spectacular events in modern-day athletics, the Brazilian has been gliding over the hurdles since the start of the summer, with a series of prestigious victories and a reference time of 46’’63. So, is there an opportunity to topple the world record (45’’94) set by Norwegian athlete Karsten Warholm in Paris? The shockwaves of such a feat would be truly epic with less than a month to go until the Olympic meet.
