Featuring eight newly-crowned world champions from Budapest, the inaugural Xiamen Diamond League meeting delivered mouth-watering action on Saturday (2 September).
The penultimate stop of the 2023 regular series provided some of the world’s best track and field athletes a chance to earn some valuable points towards qualifying for the finals in Eugene, Oregon on 16 and 17 September.
Jamaica’s Olympic champion Hansle Parchment brought the meeting to a climactic end with a brilliant come-from-behind victory over three-time world champion Grant Holloway.
The American made an explosive start, but Parchment surged over the second half of the race to win in a season’s best 12.96.
Holloway hit the last hurdle hard and ended up in third place (13.12) with Daniel Roberts second in 13.03.
Ukraine’s world champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh took the high jump by making 1.95m with her third attempt before delighting the crowd with first-time clearances at 1.98m and then a world lead-equalling 2.02m.
Lia Apostolovski of Slovenia was second with 1.92m ahead of Australia’s former world champion Eleanor Patterson on countback.
“I am really happy that I managed to break my season best of 2.01. I did not expect that because I felt a little bit tired…I definitely would love to break the world record (2.09m), which is my dream,” Mahuchikh said afterwards.
The men’s 800m boasted a loaded field which included the top three from the men’s 800m at the World Championships including newly-minted champion Marco Arop.
World silver medallist Emmanuel Wanyonyi of Kenya turned the tables on the Canadian in Xiamen, dipping on the line to edge out Arop with a 2023 world lead of 1:43.20.
Benjamin Robert of France was third ahead of Diamond League leader Wyclife Kinyamal with Britain’s world bronze medallist Ben Pattison down in ninth place.
Christian Coleman dominated the men’s 100m, clocking a joint world lead of 9.83 to beat Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson with Fred Kerley and Olympic champion Marcell Jacobs seventh.
