Faith Kipyegon at the 2016 IAAF Diamond League meeting in Eugene
NAIROBI, Kenya, June 4 – Olympic and World champion Faith Chepng’etich Kipyegon will make a comeback from maternity leave to compete at the star-studded women’s 1500m field at Prefontaine Classic June 30 in the United States of America.
Kipyegon will take on two-time Diamond Trophy winner Laura Muir of Great Britain, Shelby Houlihan of the US, last season’s top metric miler and current world leader Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia, who clocked 3:59.57 in Nanjing on 21 May.
“I am happy to be back after taking sometime off, I will try my best to make an impact with a winning start,” Kipyegon told Capital Sport.
Kipyegon, who has won the IAAF Diamond League Trophy before, will use the Prefontaine Classic leg as part of her fitness test as she readies to defend her Olympics title in Tokyo, Japan 2020.
Olympic 1500M champion Faith Kipyegon winning the Shanghai IAAF Diamond League.
The strong field also has Moroccan record-holder Rababe Arafi, the winner in Shanghai, 2018 IAAF Continental Cup winner Winny Chebet of Kenya, Ethiopia’s Axumawit Embaye, the 2014 world indoor silver medallist and more recently the runner-up in Nanjing where she clocked a 4:00.17 lifetime best.
Also in are Alemaz Samuel of Ethiopia, the 2018 world U20 champion and 18-year-old Lemlem Hailu, the 2017 world U18 champion who last month raced to the Ethiopian senior title over the distance.
Hailu clocked 8:34.03 in the 3000m at the Diamond League opener in Doha last month, the fourth fastest U20 performance of all-time.
Cheruiyot heads Lausanne men’s 1500m field
Timothy Cheruiyot smiles after victory at the Rome IAAF Diamond League on May 31, 2018. PHOTO/IAAF
Elsewhere, Organisers of Lausanne’s Athletissima on 5 July, the series’ eighth stop, announced several entrants in their high-powered men’s 1500m race headed by Kenya’s Timothy Cheruiyot, the 2018 Diamond League champion.
The 23-year-old has gotten off to a solid start, opening his season with a runner-up finish in Doha and a victory in Oslo last week.
World indoor 1500m record holder Samuel Tefera of Ethiopia will also race, along with Norwegian brother Jakob and Filip Ingebrigtsen. Jakob, who won’t turn 19 until 19 September, famously raced to a 1500/5000m triumph at last summer’s European Championships, opened his outdoor season with a third place finish in Oslo.
