The organizers declared, in a press conference held on Monday in Rabat, that this edition of the Diamond League, taking place for the first time in Africa, will be distinguished by the participation of 20 olympic medalist athletes (6 golden, 9 silver and 5 bronze medalists), 39 world outdoor championships medalists (18 golden, 12 silver and 9 bronze medalists) and 31 world indoor championships medlaists (13 golden, 11 diamond and 7 bronze).
The Moroccan team will be represented in this edition by Abdelaati Iguider, 1500 meters bronze medalist in the 2012 London Olymic Games and Bejing world championships, who will take the 3000 meters steepelchase and Aziz Ouhadi in the 200 meters race, alongside Hicham Sigueni, Brahim Taleb and Jawad Chemlal who will compete on the 3000 meters race track. Meanwhile, Amine El Manaoui and Abdellatif El Guesse will run the 800 meters race.
On the women’s side, Morocco will be represented by Lamiae Lhabz and Hayat Lambarki in the 400 meters hurdles event, alongside Malika Akkaoui, Siham Hilali and Rabab Arafi who will share the 800 meters race track, while Salima El Ouali Alami and Fadwa Sidi Madane will particpate in the 3000 meters steeplechase race.
On another side, the competition will know the participation of the Pole Vault champion, Yarisley Silva, against the world indoor championships diamond medalist Sandi Morris, the Diamond League champion Nikoléta Kiriakopoulu, the 2016 world indoor championships silver medalist Ekaterini Stefanidi and the three times Dimaond League champion Silke Spiegelburg.
In the Discus throw event, the competition will gather the world champion Piotr Malachowski and the first six athletes of the 2015 Bejing World Championships, including the silver medalist Philippe Milanov, the bronze medlaist Robert Urbanek and the 2008 olypmpic champion and the Diamond League record holder Gerd Kanter.
Fabrice Lapierre, the 2010 world champion, enters the High Jump competition along with the 2012 and 2014 world champion Mauro Vinícius da Silva.
Caterine Ibraguen, the 2013 and 2015 world champion, will face the 2016 indoor world champion Yulimar Rojas in the Triple Jump event.
The Moroccan Athletics Federation’s organizing comittee memeber, Khalid Regoug, praised the major works undertaken at the Princs Moulay Abdellah Stadium which will host the Meeting International Mohammed VI d’Athlétisme next Sunday, adding that the organizational matters at the administrative and technical level are in full swing.
Regoug affirmed, during the press conference, that 150 track and field athletics officials were chosen to take part in the competition in accordance with the Diamond League’s scope statement.
Wilfried Meert, the Meeting Mohammed VI coordinator and the Van Damme Memorial Meeting of Brussels organizer, stated that the next edition of the meeting, integrated into the Daimond League tour, will be the best compared to the first eight editions. Meert asserted that this year’s edition will host some of the world’s elite athletes and expressed his great optimism about the success of the Dimaond Meeting.
The meeting Mohammed VI d’Athlétisme was chosen to replaced the New York meeting on the Diamond League tour after a competition with the meetings of: Bejing (China); Rio De Janeiro (Brazil) and Ostrava (Czech republic).
The Diamond League, organised by the IAAF since 2010, includes 15 meetings, at the end of which a winner is crowned in each of the 16 track and field events.
18 May, 2016
