Online Reporter
ZIMBABWEAN athlete Makanakaishe Charamba will be part of a world class field that will take part in the Lausanne Diamond League Athletics Championships in Lausanne today.
This is one of the biggest athletics events in the world and brings top athletes from this year’s event, meaning form was taken into consideration and times too.
Charamba has had a good season running the fastest 200m by any Zimbabwean this year. He clocked 19.88 seconds, the second fastest this year among Zimbabwe born athletes running in both Africa and the United States of America.
He is not new to those levels having run in the Olympics’ 200m final of 2024 and reaching the semi-finals of the 2025 World Championships.
This evening he will fancy his chances against quality.
He goes into the race ranked fifth and seemingly guaranteed of a place in the final event of the series next month.
South African, Sinesipho Dambile leads the race and looks guaranteed of a good lane with his 28 points with Motswana Sprint King Tebogo Letsile second with 22 and American Kenneth Bednarek third on 16.
Mena Reynier is fourth in the rankings with 14 and Charamba with 13 looks assured of a place in the final event of the year but he just has to get good positions in the weekend events as there is another competition over the weekend.
Meanwhile Audrey Werro, Mondo Duplantis, Emmanuel Wanyonyi and Masai Russell will be among the stars in action when the Wanda Diamond League resumes in Lausanne this week.
World pole vault record-holder Duplantis headlines the city event on the shores of Lake Geneva on Thursday (20) before the main Athletissima meeting at the Pontaise Olympic Stadium on Friday (21).
Sweden’s Duplantis makes his eighth appearance in Lausanne, fresh off clearing a championship record of 6.15m to win his fourth successive European pole vault title in Birmingham. That height also stands as the Athletissima record, set by Duplantis in 2024.
He will again be challenged by Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis, who added European silver to his major medal collection on Sunday, and Australia’s Kurtis Marschall, who handed Duplantis his first defeat in almost three years in Stockholm in June.
It was also in Stockholm that Swiss star Werro ran 1:53.98 to move to third on the world 800m all-time list. She strengthened that position by clocking 1:53.80 in Paris later that month and most recently beat Keely Hodgkinson and Femke Broeders-Bol to the European title in Birmingham.
Werro and Broeders-Bol clash again in Lausanne and this time they face Kenya’s world champion Lilian Odira, winner at the Diamond League meeting in Eugene.
Beyond victory in Lausanne, athletes will be competing for places at the Diamond League Final in Brussels where Werro will want to retain her Diamond League title. A win in Brussels also secures guaranteed entry for events contested at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship, making the Diamond League Final the last opportunity for athletes to book their place in Budapest automatically.
The men’s 800m sees Kenya’s Olympic and world champion Wanyonyi return to the scene of his 1:41.11 from 2024 – a performance that places him joint second on the world all-time list. He goes on the hunt for his first Diamond League 800m win of the year, following the world 1000m record of 2:11.83 he set in Monaco last month. His competition includes Canada’s world leader Marco Arop, who won at the Paris Diamond League in 1:41.84, and USA’s Brandon Miller, the winner of the London Diamond League.
Díaz set to soar
Italy’s Andy Díaz Hernández soared to fourth on the world triple jump all-time list at the European Championships and the world indoor champion will want to maintain the momentum in Lausanne as he competes for the first time since that 18.15m leap. —SportsReporter/worldathletics.org
