Sinesipho Dambile can expect a baptism of fire when he makes his Diamond League debut in Rabat tonight.
Injury-plagued Dambile, a 200m finalist at the world championships last year, is one of five South Africans in action in Morocco, along with Prudence Sekgodiso, Zakithi Nene, Tshepo Tshite and Marioné Fourie.
Dambile takes on Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo of Botswana and American Kenneth Bednarek, the silver medallist at the last two Games and the 2025 world championships.
But it is the South African who goes into this race as the top seed, based on the 19.77 personal best he delivered in Nairobi last month.
Dambile, 24, hasn’t competed since then because an injury kept him out of World Relays in Gaborone in early May.
Canadian Andre de Grasse, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion, clocked 19.84 in Botswana a month ago, and Jamaican Bryan Levell, the world championship bronze medallist, went 19.93, finishing second behind Dambile in Kenya.
No Wayde
Wayde van Niekerk was supposed to race, but he pulled out this week saying he hadn’t quite recovered from a quad injury.
Dambile will be heartened by the recent success of training partner Gift Leotlela, who picked up his maiden Diamond League victory in the 100m in China two weeks ago.
Leotlela beat Tebogo, among others. So far this year the Botswana superstar hasn’t looked dangerous in the 100m, in which he won world championship silver at Budapest 2023.
He was fairly sharp helping Botswana to the 4x400m gold at the World Relays, although he was burned by Lythe Pillay on the third leg.
There will be much interest in Tebogo’s performance in what will be only his second 200m of the year after a season-opening 20.75 in February.
Sekgodiso, who won in Rabat two years ago, has no easy task in the women’s 800m, where she goes up against Kenya’s world champion Lilian Odira, the eighth-fastest of all time.
Also in the field are Ethiopia’s Olympic silver medallist Tsige Duguma and Sage Hurta-Klecker of the US and Swiss Audrey Werro, who ended fifth and sixth at the world championships last year.
Nene, whose only Diamond League win came in Stockholm in 2023, faces a field that includes the full Olympic podium from Paris 2024 as well as Botswana’s 2025 world championship bronze medallist, Bayapo Ndori.
Tough field
American Quincy Hall, the Olympic champion, has not competed since winning the Diamond League meet in Rome last year, while silver medallist Matthew Hudson-Smith of Britain is looking to recapture his form from two years ago.
Zambian Muzala Samukonga, the Olympic bronze medallist, finished second behind Botswana’s world champion Collen Kebinatshipi in China last weekend.
Nene was third in that race.
Tshite, owner of the 3min 31.35sec South African 1,500m record, is up against a tough field that features seven men who have been under 3:30.00, including world champion Isaac Nader of Portugal, France’s Morocco-born defending champion Azeddine Habz, Kenya’s world championship bronze medallist Reynold Cheruiyot and American Olympic bronze medallist Yared Nuguse.
Fourie competes in the women’s 100m hurdles, a non-Diamond event that features Swiss world champion Dutaji Kambundji and the Nigerian runner-up Tobi Amusan.
The meet will be broadcast live by SuperSport on DStv channel 208 from 8pm.
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