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2023 Diamond League: Xiamen

Grant Holloway Leads Field Of 19 World Medalists For Diamond League Xiamen

Grant Holloway Leads Field Of 19 World Medalists For Diamond League Xiamen

U.S. hurdler Grant Holloway headlines a list of eight champions and 19 medalists competing at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Xiamen, China on Saturday.

Aug 30, 2023 by Joe Battaglia
Grant Holloway Leads Field Of 19 World Medalists For Diamond League Xiamen

Grant Holloway, fresh off winning his third consecutive 110m hurdles title at the World Championships, headlines a list of eight champions and 19 medalists, including four Americans, competing at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Xiamen, China on Saturday.

The meet, which is the first Diamond League to be contested in China since 2019, will feature some major star power and matchups as the athletes continue to build toward the season finale at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene next month.

Holloway, who clocked a season-best 12.96 to win Worlds gold, will toe the line against some very familiar faces, including Budapest silver medalist Hansle Parchment of Jamaica, bronze medalist Daniel Roberts and fourth-place finisher Freddie Crittenden of the U.S., and eighth-place finisher Wilhem Belocian of France. Holloway has beaten Parchment in seven of eight head-to-head meetings, his lone loss coming in the Tokyo Olympic final.

Joining Holloway among Worlds gold medalists from the USA will be Laulauga Tausaga-Collins in the women’s discus. Tausaga-Collins was one of the biggest surprise performers in Budapest, where she uncorked a throw of 69.49m in the fifth round – the second-best throw ever by an American and a personal best by nearly four meters – to stun the field of favorites to become the country’s first world champion in the event. Tausaga-Collins will face China’s Bin Feng, the Budapest bronze medalist whom she unseated as world champion, and two-time world and Olympic champion Sandra Perkovic of Croatia. 

Another repeat winner in Budapest, Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco, will be showcased in the 20-competitor men’s 3000m steeplechase field. The Tokyo Olympic champion's competitors will include Worlds bronze medalist Abraham Kibiwot of Kenya as well as Americans Andy Bayer and Isaac Updike.

Marco Arop of Canada will be the main attraction in the men’s 800m after upgrading his 2022 Worlds bronze to gold in Budapest. The 2018 NCAA runner-up for Mississippi State will be challenged by the men who joined him on the podium last weekend, Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya and Ben Pattison of Great Britain, as well as American Isaiah Harris.

Hugues Fabrice Zango of Burkina Faso made history in Budapest when he won the triple jump to become his country’s first ever world champion in any event. The next challenge for the 30-year-old is a field that includes three Americans, Chris Bernard, Donald Scott and Christian Taylor, the two-time Olympic and four-time world champion who is working his way back from an Achilles injury.

World champ Yaroslava Mahuchikh, whose victory on the final day in Budapest 18-months after Russia's invasion of her home of Ukraine was one of the more emotional moments of the meet, will continue her march toward another Diamond League trophy in the women’s high jump, where she will face silver medalist Eleanor Patterson of Australia.

In the women’s 400m, Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic will look to continue her season of dominance, which just saw her run a national-record 48.76 to win her country’s first world title. Paulino, who has just one loss at the distance this year, will face bronze medalist Sada Williams of Barbados as well as Americans Lynna Irby-Jackson, Talitha Diggs and Makenzie Dunmore.

The women’s long jump will feature newly-crowned world champion Ivana Vuleta of Serbia, who is coming of a world-leading performance of 7.14m/23-5.25, against Ese Brume of Nigeria, the fourth-place finisher in Budapest, as well as American Quanesha Burks.

In the men’s 400m, world bronze medalist Quincy Hall of the USA will take on countryman Vernon Norwood, who ran on the winning men’s 4x400m, and Grenada’s Kirani James, who has won medals of every color in the event at the Olympics and World Championships in his career but was disqualified from the 400m final for a lane infraction.

The men’s 100m will feature the match-up everyone was salivating for earlier this spring – 2022 world champion Fred Kerley of the U.S. versus Olympic champion Marcel Jacobs of Italy. Neither man made it to the 100m final in Budapest but both ran key legs for their medal-winning 4x100m relays. Christian Coleman and Brandon Carnes, who joined Kerley on the gold-medal-winning 4x100m, as well as fellow American Marvin Bracy, Jamaicans Yohan Blake, Ackeem Blake, Kishane Thompson and Rohan Watson and China’s Xie Zhenye round out the lineup.

Rushell Clayton of Jamaica tops the women’s 400m hurdles field coming off her bronze-medal run at Worlds. She will face fifth-place finisher Anna Cockrell of the U.S., and teammates Janieve Russell and Andrenette Knight, who placed seventh and eighth respectively. 

Beatrice Chebet of Kenya, the world cross-country champion and bronze medalist at 5000m, headlines a women’s 3000m field that will include 11 other runners from Kenya or Ethiopia, none close to matching Chebet’s season- and personal-best of 8:25.01, as well as Americans Josette Andrews and Abby Nichols. 

None of the three medalists from Budapest will be competing in the women’s 1500m here, but the field still boasts no shortage of talent with eight sub-four-minute runners, led by Ethiopia’s Freweyni Hailu and Worknesh Mesele and Linden Hall of Australia. Melissa Courtney-Bryant of Great Britain, 20-year-old Purity Chepkirui of Kenya and Americans Emily Mackay, Dani Jones, Helen Schlachtenhaufen and Kristie Schoffield also bear watching.

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