BRUSSELS: Javelin throw star Neeraj Chopra will have lofty expectations to live up to, while for steeplechaser Avinash Sable, it would be an opportunity to make up for a disappointing Olympics, when the star-studded Diamond League season finale begins here on Friday, featuring the best of world athletics.
For the first time, the showpiece is spread over two days, with the field featuring top athletes from all continents, including an unprecedented number of Olympic medal winners vying for top honours in 32 disciplines.
Pole vault world record holder Armand Duplantis, American sprint queen Sha'Carri Richardson, and superstar hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone are among the big names who will light up the King Baudouin Stadium.
National record-holding 3000m steeplechaser Sable, after finishing 11th at the Olympic Games, will be in action on Friday in his maiden appearance in the Diamond League season finale.
Chopra, who added a silver to his Olympic medal tally in Paris after his historic gold at the Tokyo Games, will aim to end his season on a high this Saturday.
This is the first time that a Diamond League finale features two Indians.
Sable finished 14th in the overall Diamond League standings with three points from two meetings. However, four athletes ranked higher than him — Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma (injured), New Zealand’s Geordie Beamish, Japan’s Ryuji Miura, and USA’s Hillary Bor — pulled out, allowing him to sneak inside the top 12 cut-off.
Five of the 14 Diamond League series meetings this season included the men's 3000m steeplechase event.
The 29-year-old Sable finished sixth with a national record time of 8:09.91 — bettering his own earlier mark — at the Paris leg of the Diamond League on 7th July. He placed 14th at the Silesia leg with a time of 8:29.96 on 25th August.
Chopra, on the other hand, made the Diamond League final cut after finishing fourth in the overall standings with 14 points from his two second-place finishes in the one-day meets held in Doha and Lausanne.
Each Diamond League season finale champion is awarded a 'Diamond Trophy', USD 30,000 prize money, and a wild card for the World Athletics Championships. The runner-up receives USD 12,000.
Chopra skipped the last series meet in Zurich last week. The 26-year-old finished two points behind Czech Republic's Jakub Vadlejch. Grenada’s Anderson Peters and German star Julian Weber took the top two spots with 29 and 21 points, respectively.
Chopra has been struggling with fitness this season and is expected to meet a doctor to address a groin injury that has plagued him all year and hindered his quest to reach the 90m mark. He won the Lausanne leg in 2022 and 2023 and finished second behind Vadlejch in the winner-takes-all finale in Eugene, USA, last year.