In a men’s 1500m field bursting with youth and experience, Olympic silver medallist Timothy Cheruiyot (KEN) – the world champion in Doha 2019 – will line up against world bronze medallist Narve Gilje Nordas (NOR) and teenage record-breakers Biniam Mehary (ETH) and Reynold Cheruiyot (KEN) at the Seashore Group Doha Meeting on Friday.
The 28-year-old Timothy Cheruiyot was a 1500m silver medallist at the World Athletics Championships in London 2017 before upgrading to gold in Doha. He finished sixth in Eugene in 2022 and has a lifetime best of 3:28.28 (2021). He ran a 3000m personal best of 7:36.72 in Doha last year.
Nordas excelled in 2023 with lifetime bests across a range of distances from 1500m (3:29.47) to 5000m (13:05.38). His World Championships bronze came in a memorable race in Budapest which saw him finish just three one-hundredths of a second behind countryman Jakob Ingebrigtsen. In March 2024 he finished fifth at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow.
17-year-old Mehary and 19-year-old Reynold Cheruiyot – the world under-20 1500m champion and a finalist at the 2023 World Championships - have made their own headlines over the past 12 months setting world age-group records over 1500m indoors (3:34.83) and mile (3:48.06) respectively.
Other notable names on the start list include two-time world indoor 1500m champion and Ethiopian indoor record holder Samuel Tefera; Spain’s 1500m indoor record holder Adel Mechaal, fifth in the Tokyo Olympic Games; and Olympic and World Championships fourth-place finisher Abel Kipsang (KEN).
“The men’s 1500m is one of the most competitive and exciting events in athletics right now,” said Timothy Cheruiyot, who opened his season with a 1:46.56 800m at the Kip Keino Classic in Nairobi on 20 April.
“While I was proud to have represented Kenya at my fifth consecutive World Championships last summer, it took me some time to recover from a knee injury that was affecting my performances. My race fitness isn’t quite where I’d like it to be at this time of year, but the most important thing is that I’m healthy and happy. I’m looking forward to racing in Doha – a country where I have such wonderful memories of winning world gold – and putting down an important marker as I build towards the Kenyan Olympic trials.”
The Seashore Group Doha Meeting is the third meeting of the 2024 Wanda Diamond League. The series comprises 15 meetings in total across four different continents and started with Xiamen (China) on 20 April. It concludes with a single final across two days in Brussels (13-14 September). Each of the 14 series meetings will be broadcast globally in a live two-hour programme. (DiamondLeague)
