Kipyegon, Omanyala lead all-star cast for Xiamen

In Xiamen, Kipyegon, who Wednesday announced she will attempt to become the first woman to run a mile under four minutes in a Nike "Breaking 4" project scheduled for June 26 in Paris, will make her 2025 debut by dropping down to the 1000m.

Other world beaters to descend the Chinese city are double Olympic champion Beatrice Chebet, Mondo Duplantis, Grant Holloway, Yaroslava Mahuchikh and Gudaf Tsegay.

Duplantis returns to the scene of the eighth of his now 11 world pole vault records.

The Swedish 25-year-old, who on Monday was named the Laureus World Sportsman of the Year, cleared 6.24m in Xiamen last year and went on to set another world record of 6.25m in Paris, where he retained his Olympic title.

He has achieved another two world records since – 6.26m in Silesia later in August and 6.27m in Clermont-Ferrand in February.

The meeting in Xiamen will be his outdoor season opener as Duplantis competes for the first time since winning his third consecutive world indoor title in Nanjing last month.

Season debut for Kipyegon

Kipyegon claimed her third Olympic 1500m title in Paris last year and in Xiamen she will make her 2025 debut by dropping down to the 1000m.

The 31-year-old holds world records in the 1500m and the mile, and she sits second on the world all-time list for the 1000m following her 2:29.15 run in Monaco in 2020 – that performance just 0.17 shy of Svetlana Masterkova's world record set in 1996.

The Xiamen 1000m will be Kipyegon’s first race since the Athlos meeting in September last year. Earlier that month she won her fifth Diamond League title at the final in Brussels.

She will be joined in Xiamen by athletes including Ethiopia’s world U20 champion Saron Berhe and Olympic 800m silver medallist Tsige Duguma, plus Australia’s Abbey Caldwell, Uganda’s Halimah Nakaayi and Benin’s Noelie Yarigo.

The women’s 5000m will feature a clash of global champions – both of them world record-holders.

Beatrice Chebet achieved an Olympic 5000m and 10,000m title double in Paris and is the world record-holder in the longer distance as well as for 5km on the roads, while Ethiopia’s Tsegay is the world 5000m record-holder who more recently won the world indoor 1500m title in a championship record in Nanjing.

Their head-to-head record in 5000m track finals stands at 3-2 in Tsegay’s favour and in Xiamen they will clash for the first time since last year’s Olympic Games.

Among those joining them on the start line are Ethiopia’s two-time world indoor champion Freweyni Hailu, Birke Haylom and world U20 steeplechase champion Sembo Almayew, making her 5000m debut.

The entry list for the men’s 100m stars Botswana’s Olympic 200m gold and 100m silver medallist Letsile Tebogo as well as all three world indoor 60m medallists – champion Jeremiah Azu, Lachlan Kennedy and Akani Simbine – plus Christian Coleman and Ferdinand Omanyala.

The men’s 400m features USA’s world indoor champion Christopher Bailey, Olympic and world gold medallist Kirani James and Bayapo Ndori, while Morocco’s multiple Olympic and world champion Soufiane El Bakkali goes in the 3000m steeplechase – his first race since last year’s Diamond League final.

World indoor medallists Wayne Pinnock and Liam Adcock are in long jump action, while the non-Diamond League triple jump includes Hugues Fabrice Zango and the javelin features Olympic silver medallist Jo-Ane van Dyk.