Lyles to open 200m season against Tebogo in Monaco

Monaco, 10 July - Noah Lyles makes his much-anticipated return to elite competition when he competes in the 200m at the Diamond League meet in Monaco on Friday.

As athletes continue to fine-tune their form ahead of September's world championships in Tokyo, Lyles will line up against Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo.

Here, AFP Sport looks at five stand-out disciplines at the 10th meeting of the 15-event Diamond League circuit at the Stade Louis II:

- Men's 200m -

Olympic 100m champion Lyles makes his return to action in the 200m on a track where his one previous appearance, in 2020, saw him clock a sensational 19.46 seconds.

The 27-year-old American ran a 400m in Atlanta in April, but is yet to compete over the 100 or 200m this season.

Lyles' season and European debut in the half-lap race will see him line up against Botswana's Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo.

It will be the duo's first race since that final in Paris last summer when a Covid-struck Lyles claimed bronze.

Tebogo heads to Monaco as the sprinter to beat. He set the fastest time of the season over 200m in Eugene on Saturday, in 19.76sec, having recovered from a poor start to the season.

"For me, this is the tip of an iceberg," said Tebogo. "The 19.7 is a shock to me because we just recovered from an injury which took a lot of weeks of training, so I'm happy with how I performed.

"I believe in showing up and those losses from the first Diamond Leagues, they built my character into a very confident man."

- Women's 400m hurdles -

Femke Bol, the world champion, double European champion and four-time Olympic medallist, boasts an incredible streak of 25 consecutive victories in the Diamond League since 2021, including four final wins.

Bol first competed in Monaco in 2020, finishing third in the 400m flat on her Diamond League debut.

"I've trained well this year. Monaco is one of the meetings I haven't won yet and I would love to change that this year," said Bol.

"I hope to run a great race and fully enjoy the atmosphere."

The Dutchwoman will have some serious competition from Dalilah Muhammad and fellow American Anna Cockrell, Olympic silver medallist in Paris.

- Men's pole vault -

Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis again headlines the pole vault competition, the US-born Swede fresh from another victory last weekend in Eugene.

The two-time Olympic champion won that with a vault of 6.00m, comfortably ahead of Americans Sam Kendricks and Austin Miller.

The question on everyone's lips whenever Duplantis takes to the field is whether everything aligns for him to have another pitch at bettering his own world record.

That currently stands at 6.28m, which he set in Stockholm three weeks ago, the 12th time he has improved the world record.

At the Stade Louis II, he will seek to erase the blip of 2023 when he finished fourth with 5.72m, far from his usual standards.

- Women's 100m -

Olympic champion Julien Alfred saw her winning streak ended by in-form American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden in Eugene.

Saint Lucia's Alfred, whose gold in Paris was the first-ever for her tiny Caribbean island nation, finished second in 10.77, two-hundredths off the American and her own fastest time of the season.

In Monaco, Alfred will be up against the Jamaican Clayton twins, Tia and Tina, New Zealander Zoe Hobbs and a US trio in the form of Aleia Hobbs, Jacious Sears and Maia McCoy.

Could the meeting record of 10.72sec set by Marion Jones in 1998 be under threat?

- Men's 800m -

It is safe to say that the two-lap event is enjoying one of its best moments, with a raft of top-notch runners pushing each other in their quest to break David Rudisha's world record set when winning Olympic gold in London in 2012.

Kenya's world champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi will headline the race, but again faces a loaded field that includes Olympic silver and bronze medallists Marco Arop and Djamel Sedjati, the latter also the meet record holder.BSS