Doha Preview: Champions Galore as 2014 Series Gets Underway

Published by the IAAF Diamond League on May 8, 2014

Nine reigning or former Olympic champions including Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce , Kenya’s Asbel Kiprop, USA's Christian Taylor and Valerie Adams of New Zealand will set this season’s IAAF Diamond League in motion at the Qatar Sports Club on Friday (8).

At 27, Fraser-Pryce has a dominance within women’s sprinting to match that of her compatriot Usain Bolt in the men’s events, and she doesn’t look like relinquishing her position any time soon.

Having won the 60m title in her first IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot two months ago, just seven months after winning 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay gold at the IAAF World Championships in Moscow, the 2013 World Athlete of the Year is on a roll as she prepares for her first 100m of the outdoor season.

Fraser-Pryce earned an unprecedented 100m and 200m double Diamond Race victory last year after getting her 2013 season underway with a 200m win in Doha.

She maintains she is concentrating on the longer distance in the IAAF Diamond League in a year when she also has ambitions in this summer’s Commonwealth Games, and she won her opening 200m in Kingston last Saturday in 22.53.

The amiable Jamaican – whose ever-changing hair colour is currently highlighted red - faces strong opposition in Blessing Okagbare, who took 200m bronze – and long jump silver – in Moscow last summer. The Nigerian won her 100m season opener in on Fraser-Pryce’s home track in Kingston on Saturday in 11.19.

The USA will be represented over 100m by the 21-year-old national champion English Gardner, who finished fourth in the World Championships and has a 10.85 career best, along with Alexandria Anderson, another sub-11 sprinter.

The men’s sprinting in Doha, which will also be over 200m, features the silver and bronze medallists behind Usain Bolt at last year’s World Championships – respectively Jamaica’s Warren Weir and USA’s Curtis Mitchell.

Both men look in a strong position to improve their credentials as the men most likely to challenge the multiple world and Olympic champion Usain Bolt over the longer sprint in coming seasons. The field also includes 2012 European champion Churandy Martina.

High jumpers to hit the heights?

The men’s High Jump, which has become increasingly competitive in the last couple of years, will feature home star and Asian record holder Mutaz Essa Barshim, who won the World indoor title in Sopot and now wants to complete the logical sequence of his Doha results having followed third place with second last year.