Three Nigerian athletes will compete for Diamond League titles at the Diamond League final in Brussels this weekend.
Tobi Amusan will contest the women’s 100m hurdles, Kanyinsola Ajayi lines up in the men’s 100m and Ezekiel Nathaniel competes in the men’s 400m hurdles.
Ajayi is scheduled to run at 7:14 pm Nigerian time on Friday, while both Amusan and Nathaniel will race on Saturday at 8:10 pm and 8:52 pm respectively.
For Amusan, the final provides an immediate opportunity to respond after losing the 100m hurdles world record in Zurich.
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Amusan meets Russell again
Masai Russell ran 12.09s in Zurich last week, taking three hundredths of a second off the world record Amusan set at the 2022 World Championships in Eugene.
Amusan finished second in 12.23s, her fastest time of the season.
The pair meet again in Brussels, where Russell will attempt to add her first Diamond League title to the Olympic gold medal and world record she already holds.
Amusan will be seeking her fourth Diamond Trophy after winning the series in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
The field also includes Devynne Charlton, Alaysha Johnson, Megan Simmonds and Pia Skrzyszowska.
The attention will inevitably remain on the rematch between Russell and Amusan.
Ajayi faces loaded 100m field
Ajayi enters his first Diamond League Final after a season that has moved him into the leading group of global sprinters.
The Nigerian has run a personal and season’s best of 9.84s and is ranked fourth in the world entering Brussels.
His final will include Jamaica’s Oblique Seville, who leads the field with a season’s best of 9.82s, and experienced Americans Trayvon Bromell and Christian Coleman.
Akani Simbine and Gift Leotlela represent South Africa, while Cameroon’s Emmanuel Eseme and Australia’s Lachlan Kennedy are also included.
There is little separating the leading contenders on time.
Ajayi’s 9.84s is two hundredths behind Seville’s season’s best. Kennedy has run 9.85, Eseme 9.89, Coleman 9.90s and Bromell 9.91s.
That leaves limited room for error at the start or through the transition phase of the race.
Ajayi has already shown that he belongs in such company. Winning in Brussels would provide the strongest result of his senior career and make him Nigeria’s first men’s 100m Diamond League champion.
Nathaniel faces the new world-record holder
Nathaniel’s challenge may be the most demanding of the three. The Nigerian will face Alison dos Santos one week after the Brazilian broke the men’s 400m hurdles world record in Zurich.
Dos Santos ran 45.80s, improving Karsten Warholm’s previous record of 45.94s.
Nathaniel enters the final with a personal best of 47.11s and a season’s best of 47.37s. He is ranked fourth in the world and has become a consistent presence against the discipline’s leading athletes.
The 22-year-old finished the Diamond League qualification season with 16 points from three meetings.
His Brussels field includes Dos Santos, Emil Agyekum, Trevor Bassitt, Caleb Dean, Matheus Lima and Matic Ian Guček.
Dos Santos will begin as the clear favourite, but Nathaniel has an opportunity to measure his progress against the fastest man in the event’s history.
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