The One Hour World Record attempts for Men (Mo Farah, Bashir Abdi and Sondre Moen) and Women (Sifan Hassan and now also Brigid Kosgei) remain the main attraction of this Diamond League exhibition event. But now an attack at the 1000m World Record is added to the program. Kenyan Faith Kipyegon - the reigning 1500m Olympic Champion – was only 17 hundredths of a second shy of the 1000m World Record in Monaco, held by Svetlana Masterkova from Russia (2:28.98). Kipyegon now plans a new attempt at the World Record in the Stadium where Masterkova set the record in 1996 … at the Memorial Van Damme.
The Women’s 1000m replaces the 4 x 400m Mixed Relay event. The Borlée brothers decided to put an end to their season, as a result of slight injuries. Nafi Thiam has also been forced to withdraw from the 44th AG Memorial Van Damme. The Olympic Heptahlon Champion suffers from continuous pain at the achilles tendons and does not want to take any risk. As a result there will not be a Triathlon duel between Thiam and World Champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson from Great-Britain. Although Johnson-Thompson will appear on the infield : she competes in the 100m Hurdles and in a high level High Jump event. The Briton has a personal High Jump best of 1,98m.
The Triathlon Shot Put is cancelled and is replaced by a Women’s 100m that will be built around Rani Rosius. The 20 year old sprinter from the north eastern province of Limburg was crowned the national 100m champion recently. On that occasion she set a new PB at 11.39 which raises her to second place in the Belgian all time lists. Only Kim Gevaert (11.04) has been faster so far.
Thiago Braz is also added to the field of the AG Memorial Van Damme. The Brasilian took the Olympic Pole Vault title in front of his home crowd in 2016 in Rio De Janeiro while clearing 6,03m. Braz can be a serious threat to Mondo Duplantis who has an outdoor PB of 6,05m and who holds the World Record in the event with an indoor clearance of 6,18m. The 7 year old Meeting Record from Renaud Lavillenie (5,96m) is certainly under threat ! Local hero Ben Broeders hopes to break his national outdoor record (5,76m).
The AG Memorial Van Damme exceptionally will be held behind closed doors, due to the corona-crisis, but it can be followed live on VRT/Sporza and on RTBf.
