Event Previews – MEN
200m
Last year’s Diamond Trophy winner Alonso Edward begins his 2015 campaign in a race featuring five men who have run the half-lap event in under 20 seconds. The man from Panama enjoyed four Diamond League wins at 200m in 2014 and was close to his own Central American record when he clocked 19.84 seconds in Lausanne.
But he’ll need to be on top form in Shanghai where he faces Nickel Ashmeade, the Jamaican he beat by a point to claim the 2014 Diamond Race, plus his compatriot, Rasheed Dwyer, and Churandy Martina, the former European champion from the Netherlands.
Edward ended last season in style when he clinched victory for the Americas in another sub-20 time at the IAAF Continental Cup in Marrakech, and the 25-year-old will be keen to make a winning start to 2015. But the Jamaican pair will be full of confidence too after winning 4x200m gold at the recent IAAF World Relays in Nassau.
400m
The world’s two greatest one-lap runners go head-to-head in Shanghai as world champion LaShawn Merritt clashes with Olympic champion Kirani James just months before the World Championships in Beijing.
The two were virtually inseparable last year when James got the verdict in a photo-finish at the Eugene Diamond League meeting after both had recorded a world leading time of 43.97 seconds. James won again when they met in Lausanne, clocking an area record of 43.74 to lead the world rankings.
The Grenadan went on to win gold at at the Commonwealth Games, while Merritt bagged the 400m Diamond Trophy and US$40,000 prize as well as taking victory for the Americas at the Continental Cup.
But this race won’t all be about the big two for it’s a field packed with quality 400m men, not least Botswana’s African champion Isaac Makwala, who broke the African record last year and set national records at 200m and 400m.
Merritt’s US teammates Tony McQuay and David Verburg will also be in the hunt for early season points, while Belgium’s Kevin Borlée provides the European challenge fresh from winning bronze with a national record at the World Relays in the Bahamas.
1500m
Last year’s Diamond Race winner Silas Kiplagat is one of 10 talented Kenyans in a race that features three men who have broken 3:30. Kiplagat heads that list after his incredible run at the Monaco Diamond League meeting last July when he beat world champion Asbel Kiprop and led seven men under three and a half minutes.
Kiplagat clocked 3:27.64 to place fourth on the all-time list, while teenage sensation Ronald Kwemoi was just one second behind as he smashed the world junior record with 3:28.81. The 19-year-old African bronze medallist is back in Diamond League action in Shanghai to take on his more experienced compatriot again.
World and Olympic finalist Nixon Chepseba returns to Shanghai after winning here in 2011, while fellow Kenyans Bethwell Birgen, James Magut and Vincent Kibet will also be among the contenders.
Mekonnen Gebremedhin, the former world indoor bronze medallist, will fly the flag for Ethiopia, while Jakub Holusa is the leading European after his rousing home victory at the continent’s indoor championships in Prague two months ago.
110m hurdles
Always one of the highlights of the Shanghai meeting, this year’s men’s sprint hurdles will provide an especially poignant climax to the evening’s action coming just weeks after the retirement of China’s former world record holder and Olympic champion Liu Xiang.
With all three Moscow world medalists in the line-up alongside world record holder Aries Merritt, 2011 world champion Jason Richardson, and China’s new hero Xie Wenjun, it should be a fitting way to celebrate the Shanghai superstar’s decorated career.
Liu watched from the stands last year as Xie clinched a dramatic victory for the home crowd in a personal best of 13.23. The Asian games champion will be hoping for a repeat performance on 17 May, but will have to be at his best to beat Olympic champion Merritt, who withdrew with illness 12 months ago, and his US teammate, David Oliver, who’s hoping to defend his world title in Beijing this August.
Richardson won here in 2013 and will be keen to get another Shanghai victory under his belt, while the world silver and bronze medallists, Ryan Wilson and Sergey Shubenkov, finished fifth and fourth respectively in 2014.
Ronnie Ash, the fifth US hurdler in the field, can also dip under 13 seconds on top form and could threaten the big names if he gets it right on the night.
Orlando Ortega, a London 2012 Olympic finalist from Cuba, is the youngest in the field. He improved to 13.01 last year and will be eager to run sub-13.
3000m steeplechase
Jairus Birech is the man to watch in another event packed with world-beating Kenyans, including former world and Olympic champion Brimin Kipruto, Paul Koech, the Beijing Olympic bronze medallist, and Conseslus Kipruto, the 2013 world silver medallist.
Brimin Kipruto and Koech are the second and third fastest men in history over the barriers, but it was Birech who dominated the 2014 season, winning six out of six Diamond League races including the final event in Brussels when he clocked 7:58.41 to join his two compatriots in the exclusive sub-eight minute club.
The 22-year-old will be looking to pick up where he left off in 2014 when he was a runaway winner of the Diamond Race, won gold at the African Championships in August, and pulled off another high-profile victory at the Continental Cup in September.
Hilary Yego and Barnabas Kipyego are among the other Kenyans looking to upset the favourite’s rhythm, while world and Olympic finalist Hamid Ezzine of Morocco is likely to be the best of the rest.
High jump
All eyes will be on Asian record holder Mutaz Essa Barshim and the flying Qatari’s arch enemy Bohdan Bondarenko after the pair’s record-breaking rivalry captured the public’s imagination last year. While the Ukrainian came out four-three up in head-to-head contests, it was Barshim who clinched the Diamond Race trophy when he cleared a 2.43m in Brussels at the beginning of September.
That was the third Asian record of the summer to fall to the 23-year-old world indoor champion, making him the second best jumper of all time after the great Cuban, Javier Sotomayor, whose world record of 2.45m is increasingly under threat.
Bondarenko arrives late to Shanghai having leapt a world lead of 2.37m in Kawasaki and will be keen to exert early season pressure on his smiling opponent.
The big two will also have to overcome a pair of top-quality Americans in Olympic silver medallist Erik Kynard and 2011 world champion Jesse Williams, who can both clear 2.37m at their best.
Czech record holder Jaroslav Baba and Poland’s Wojciech Theiner give the field a strong European presence, while Zhang Guowei could well provide the hosts with a reason to cheer. A finalist at the last two World Championships, Zhang won silver behind Barshim at the 2014 Asian Games last October and has already leapt 2.35m this year.
Zhang will be joined by fellow Chinaman Wang Yu while Barshim has the company of his younger brother Muamer who’ll be looking to improve on his best of 2.28m.
Long jump
Britain’s Greg Rutherford takes on Russia’s world champion Aleksandr Menkov in a contest featuring four men who’ve leapt 8.50m or further, plus three who’ve been beyond 8.40m.
After winning Olympic, European and Commonwealth titles in recent years, Rutherford makes no secret of his desire to complete the set with world gold in Beijing this August. The British record holder will be looking for an early season morale booster as he seeks victory over Moscow champion Menkov, USA’s Jeffrey Henderson, who already leads the world list with 8.50m, and South Africa’s Godfrey Mokoena, the African record holder.
The top names will need to keep an eye on Li Jinzhe, however, after the Chinese jumper upset the odds to take his first ever Diamond League win here in 2013. Li has since picked up a world indoor silver medal and the Asian Games title, while last year he extended his national record to 8.47m.
The Netherlands’ former world indoor champion, Ignisious Gaisah, and Mexico’s world bronze medallist Luis Rivera are also in the field, as is Britain’s Chris Tomlinson, a former European and world indoor medallist.
Discus
Piotr Malachowski snatched the discus Diamond Race by two points from Germany’s Robert Harting last year and the Polish record holder will be looking to make a winning start to his 2015 campaign when he takes on fellow Pole Robert Urbanek, the man who beat him to the European bronze medal in Zurich last summer.
The Polish pair will face Estonia’s former world and Olympic champion Gerd Kanter, India’s Asian and Commonwealth Games champion Vikas Gowda and Victor Hogan of South Africa.
Malachowski will be looking to repeat his Shanghai performance from 2013 when he beat Kanter by some four metres with Urbanek languishing in third and Gowda back in sixth.
Erik Cadée of the Netherlands could also be a threat this year – he finished fourth in 2013 – while Andrius Gudzius of Lithuania is another thrower with 65m in his arm.