LONDON: Olympic champion Noah Lyles reignites competition with Letsile Tebogo over 100m at Saturday’s Diamond League meet in London, a week after the American marked his return to action with victory in the 200m over the Botswanan in Monaco.

Lyles runs his first 100m of 2025, headlining an afternoon featuring the cream of track and field athletes, winners of 75 medals between them from the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest and the 2024 Paris Olympics, across both individual and relay disciplines.

A sell-out crowd of 60,000 is expected at the London Stadium, home to Premier League club West Ham United and the venue for a memorable athletics programme at the 2012 London Olympics.

Tebogo admitted in Monaco that Lyles was the crowd pleaser and that when his face appears on posters, people want to come and see him.

The Botswanan, who won the 200m gold at last year’s Paris Olympics as Lyles came third, was edged out in Monaco by the American, who clocked an impressive 19.88sec in his return to the track from a tendon injury.

Lyles said it had been tough watching early-season competition from home, but his comeback was timely with the World Championships in Tokyo on the horizon in September.

“I have a bye for the US Trials which makes it less stressful because it gives us the time to work on the races,” Lyles said. “It gives us time to see what works and what doesn’t and to be able to make moves from there.”

The home nation will be represented by Louie Hinchliffe, world indoor champion Jeremiah Azu and world 100m bronze medallist Zharnel Hughes.

The Jamaican duo of Oblique Seville and Ackeem Blake, and South African Akani Simbine fill out the field in what should be a top-notch race.

Julien Alfred will be participating in the women’s 200m event. Alfred was in dominant form when she scorched to victory in the 100m in Monaco in 10.79sec.

It looked to be perfect preparation as athletes finetune their bodies, both mentally and physically, ahead of the world championships.Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith, Daryll Neita and Amy Hunt will provide the competition, along with the sole American in the field, Brittany Brown.

The men’s 1500m features a stellar cast of homegrown athletes, notably the last two world champions Jake Wightman and Josh Kerr.

That pair each outsprinted Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen for victory in Eugene in 2022 and Budapest a year later, respectively.

Ingebrigtsen was a late withdrawal from London, his team saying he “still needs a little more time to heal the injury he has been struggling with lately... he does not want to risk anything”.

Further British hopes ride on the shoulders of Neil Gourley, George Mills and Elliot Giles, while it is Kenya’s Phanuel Kipkosgei Koech who owns the fastest time of the season in 3:27.72.

In women’s 800m there may be no local hero Keely Hodgkinson on the cards as the Olympic champion is still bidding to recover from injury, but the two-lap race is another loaded one.

Laura Muir, Jemma Reekie and Georgia Hunter Bell form a strong home trio.

The presence of Uganda’s Halimah Nakaayi and Jamaican Natoya Goule-Toppin will ensure a rapid race.

Meanwhile in the men’s 800m, all eyes will be on Kenya’s world champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi, who heads a pack of runners hunting down David Rudisha’s world record of 1:40.91.

Rudisha set that mark when he won gold at the London Olympics, but for the first time in more than a decade, there are a handful of middle distance stars seemingly capable of pushing their limits to the max.

Published in Dawn, July 19th, 2025