Plenty to look out for on the track and in the field in the Swedish capital

After the fireworks of Monaco last week, the Diamond League action moves on to Stockholm on Sunday August 23 – and the BAUHAUS-galan meeting is also promising plenty of athletic pyrotechnics, both on the track and in the field.

Another star-studded line-up has been assembled for the events taking place at the Olympic Stadium in the Swedish capital and, although there won’t be any fans allowed in the arena, there will be live coverage featuring on the BBC and streaming services.

American-born Swede Mondo Duplantis will garner much of the home attention as the pole vault world record-holder resumes his rivalry with American world champion Sam Kendricks and Poland’s world silver medallist Piotr Lisek, but across the programme the entry lists are packed with some of the finest talent on the planet.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the line-up of the women’s 1500m, which features Kenyan 5000m world champion Hellen Obiri and a British quartet headed by the in-form Laura Muir and Laura Weightman, as well as  Eilish McColgan and Melissa Courtney-Bryant.

Muir broke the British 1000m record with 2:30.82 in Monaco, while Weightman went to second on the UK all-time lists with her 5000m run of 14:35.44 at the same meeting. Ireland’s Ciara Mageean, who also broke a national record in that 1000m race, will be looking to continue her impressive form, while America’s Shannon Rowbury is the fastest in the field this year.

The men’s 1500m will round off the day’s action and it looks like a contest not to be missed. Timothy Cheruiyot and Jakob Ingebrigtsen will meet again after the Kenyan World Champion ran 3:28.45 to beat the Norwegian teenage star’s European record of 3:28.68 in Monaco. Neil Gourley and Charlie Da’Vall Grice provide the British interest.

There will also be plenty of focus on a British athlete featuring in the men’s 800m. The 18 year-old Max Burgin, who ran a British under-20 record of 1:44.75 at Trafford earlier this month, will join the likes of world champion and world leader Donavan Brazier, world silver medallist Amel Tuka and bronze medallist Ferguson Cheruiyot Rotich.

In the women’s 800m, Jemma Reekie will be aiming to keep her winning record going – she hasn’t lost over the distance this year – and arrives in Stockholm off the back of 1500m victory in Poland earlier this week. She will be up against the likes of American world silver medallist Raevyn Rogers and fellow Briton Alex Bell.

Swiss athlete Ajla del Ponte sprang a surprise with women’s 100m victory in Monaco, and the fourth-placed world silver medallist Marie Josee Ta Lou will be aiming to redress the balance this time around, while the improving Adam Gemili heads the field for the men’s 200m and his compatriots Jessie Knight and Laviai Nielsen compete in the women’s 400m.

Norwegian double world champion Karsten Warholm, meanwhile, has his sights set on improving his season-opening 47.10 over the men’s 400m hurdles.

Katarina Johnson-Thompson will also be battling the barriers, as the world heptathlon champion competes in the women’s 100m hurdles, but she will also be lining up in a long jump event which has already proved to be a real talking point before the action has even begun.

For the first time in the Diamond League, the format of the men’s and women’s long jump events will see the winner decided by what is being called “The Final Three”, which will see the three highest placed athletes have one final jump after five rounds.

The proposal, which was trialled at indoor events in Germany and Scotland earlier this year, has been met with widespread criticism by athletes, and it will be intriguing to see how well the experiment works in practice.

READ MORE: Will the new long jump format take off in Stockholm?

Elsewhere in the field, the men’s discus competition will feature world champion and Swedish home favourite Daniel Stahl, who threw a world-leading distance of 71.37m earlier this month – the second-furthest throw of his career. Lithuania’s 2017 world champion Andrius Gudzius looks set to provide the sternest opposition, while Briton Lawrence Okoye also competes.

Britain’s Holly Bradshaw forms part of what looks set to be a hotly contested women’s pole vault line-up which will get the afternoon’s action underway.

Timetable

(Times are local time, BST +1)

15:05 M Pole vault
15:05 W Pole vault
15:09 W High jump
15:14 M Long jump
15:25 W 100m hurdles
15:50 W 400m hurdles
16:03 M 400m hurdles