Javelin ace Neeraj Chopra will have lofty expectations to live up to, while for steeplechaser Avinash Sable, it would be an opportunity to make up for a disappointing Olympics, when the star-studded Diamond League season finale begins here on Friday, featuring the best of world athletics.
The showpiece is spread over two days for the first time and the field features top athletes from all continents.
Pole vault world record holder Armand Duplantis, American sprint queen Sha’Carri Richardson, and superstar hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone are among the big names whowill light up the King Baudouin Stadium.
National record-holding 3000m steeplechaser Sable, after finishing 11th in the Olympic Games, will be in action on Friday in his maiden appearance in the Diamond League season finale.
Neeraj, who added a silver to his Olympic medal tally in Paris following a historic gold in the Tokyo Games, will be aiming to end his season on a high on Saturday.
It is for the first time that a Diamond League finale features two Indians.
Sable finished 14th in the overall Diamond League standings with three points from two meetings. Butfour athletes ranked higher than him pulled out, allowing him to sneak inside the top 12 cut-off.
The 29-year-old Sable had finished sixth with a national record time of 8:09.91 — bettering his own earlier mark — in the Paris leg of the Diamond League on July 7. He was 14th at the Silesia leg with a time of 8:29.96 on August 25. Neeraj, on the other hand, made the Diamond League final cut after finishing fourth in the overall standings with 14 points from his two second-place finishes in Doha and Lausanne.
Each Diamond League season finale champion is awarded a ‘Diamond Trophy’, $30,000 prize money and a wildcard for the World Athletics Championships. The runner-up gets $12,000.
