Four Big Results from the Monaco Diamond League: The Best Meet of the Year So Far
Men’s 400m Hurdles
The first race of the evening was the men’s 400m hurdles, and with the big three coming together so close to the Olympics, it was never going to disappoint.
Together, Rai Benjamin, Karsten Warholm, and Alison Dos Santos hold the 15 fastest times in history, the Olympic record, the world record, and an astonishing 18 global medals. They have held every world and Olympic title in the event since 2017 and are the defending gold, silver, and bronze medallists from the last Olympics.
Warholm got his usual aggressive start from lane seven, with Dos Santos chasing hard on his inside. Benjamin took a much more measured approach and was rewarded in the final 50m as he cruised past the other two to win in 46.67. Warholm was second in 46.73, and Dos Santos, who was perhaps a bit heavy from his race in Paris earlier this week, came home for third just outside 47 seconds.
If you happen to own some weird, three-sided coin, you may as well flip it to pick your Olympic favourite for this event. Warholm is the world record holder and the reigning Olympic and world champion. Dos Santos has the most top 10 times this year, more race experience than the other two, and is a former world champion. Benjamin just beat both of them and has the world leading time.
My pick for the title is Benjamin. While he’s the only one who hasn’t won a world or Olympic title, many would argue he is well overdue. He has stood on the global podium more often than either Warholm or Dos Santos, and while he has never reached the top step, his win in Monaco suggests he is ready to change that.
Men’s 800m
Djamel Sedjati is redefining how to run the 800m. The Algerian opened his season with a commanding win in May and followed it five days later with another victory at the Stockholm Diamond League. He won both races the same way, putting more than a second into his opponents in the final straight with one of the most devastating kicks we’ve ever seen. While impressive, his back-to-back 1:43 victories were quickly overshadowed by Emmanuel Wanyonyi’s world-leading 1:41.70 at the Kenyan national trials. So, when the pair came together in France last weekend, we waited to see if Sedjati could find the energy to kick off a much hotter pace.
A 1:41.56 world-leading victory very much showed us that he could. With that performance, Sedjati moved to number three on the all-time list and established himself as the favourite for the Paris Olympics. Last night in Monaco, he further cemented both of those positions.
After a fast 49.14 opening lap, reigning world champion Marco Arop moved to the front, with Sedjati still tucked into the pack. With 200m to go, the Algerian positioned himself on the heels of Arop before flying wide around the final bend to hit the front for the first time with only 100m remaining. Deploying his trademark kick, Sedjati opened more than half a second on the rest of the field to improve upon his personal best and break the Diamond League Record in 1:41.46. Arop, an excellent tactician, faded to sixth: there’s not a tactic on earth that can save you in a race like that.
For most of his career, world record holder David Rudisha was untouchable over the two-lap distance. The Kenyan held a masterclass in frontrunning every time he stepped onto the track, which is why, for the last decade, his successors have all tried to do the same thing. Sedjati is bucking that trend with remarkable results, having only moved to the fore in the last 100m of all five of his races this year. In doing so, he has dragged a swarm of athletes to personal bests and national records and has single-handedly revived an event in desperate need of a new poster child.
Women’s 2000m
This may go down as the best week of Jessica Hull’s life. On Sunday in Paris, the Australian lowered her own national record by more than five seconds in the 1500m, clocking 3:50.83 to rocket to number five on the all-time list and establish herself as a serious medal contender for the Olympics. Last night, she smashed the women’s 2000m world record in Monaco, stopping the clock in 5:19.70 to become just the third Australian woman ever to hold a middle-distance world record.
“There are for sure some women who can run that 5:19, but for now I have my place in the history books. I ran hard for this record; I worked extremely hard for this.”
There’s not much to report on the racing front: Hull was all alone once the final pacemaker stepped off and won the race by more than six seconds. What this performance does mean in a broader context is that Hull is by far Australia’s best chance of a medal on the track in Paris. She is one of the only athletes in the world right now who can hold her own against the East Africans, which is an exciting prospect so close to the Olympics.
Men’s 1500m
Josh Kerr vs Jakob Ingebrigtsen is one of the most exciting matchups of the upcoming Olympics. And while Kerr may have a better kick, more championship awareness, fewer rounds to contend with, and the world championship crown, what he doesn’t have is the ability to run 1500m in 3:26.
Before the Monaco Diamond League, I wrote a brief preview in which I said that Ingebrigtsen needs to win this race with some sense of ease if he is to instil any confidence in his supporters that he can defend his Olympic title next month. The Norwegian did that and more, becoming just the fourth person to ever break 3:27 and absolutely destroying a field that contained seven of the eight fastest men in the world this year.
As ridiculously impressive as this performance was, it’s less important than you might think in the context of the Olympics. A wonderful analysis from the commentary box explained that “the only thing for him [Ingebrigtsen] is that there are no lights and there are no pacemakers at the Olympic games. So, he cannot go out and just run 3:26 on his own from the front. If he could, he would win: nobody else can do that…the only thing he can do is take the confidence from this run and know that he’s in the best shape of his life.”
With this in mind, Kerr is still my pick for the Olympic title: he is a smarter racer and has won their last two head-to-heads. But Ingebrigtsen – who was coming off an injury when he lost to Kerr at the Prefontaine Classic back in May – is in the form of his life, so nobody will blame you if you have him on your tipping sheet. The Monaco Diamond League has certainly made it harder to pick a winner and marks a perfect conclusion to a tense year of snipes and jabs between the Norwegian and the Briton. Next stop: the ultimate showdown on the world’s biggest stage.
You can find all the results from the Monaco Diamond League here.