World marathon record-holder Brigid Kosgei will be seeking to break the women's 18.517km one-hour run record during the Diamond League meeting in Brussels on Friday (today).
The reigning London Marathon champion will be up against double world champion Sifan Hassan of Netherlands and fellow Kenyans Sheila Chelangat and Eva Cherono.
Kosgei, who smashed the marathon world record with a stunning 2:14:04 run in Chicago last year, will not only be setting her eyes on the record but also making her track debut.
The one-hour men’s event will feature Kenya’s Peter Kiprotich, Kelvin Kiptum and Robert Keter with Briton and multiple Olympic 5000m champion Mo Farah starting as favorite. Also expected to parade in the race are Belgium trio of Bashir Abdi, Benjamin Choquert and Simon Debognies.
At the same time, reigning Olympic 1500m champion Faith Kipyegon has set her sights on the world 1000m record in tonight’s meeting.
The world silver medalist, who came up 0.17 shy of Svetlana Masterkova’s 2:28.98 record at the Diamond League meeting in Monaco earlier this month, will give it another try in the same stadium and meeting where the record was set in 1996. Kipyegon’s 2:29:15 performance in Monaco elevated the 26-year-old Kenyan to No. 2 all-time over the distance.
Kipyegon has also confirmed participation in the 1,500m at the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting in Ostrava on September 8. She will have the company of world record-holder Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia and 800m world leader Jemma Reekie.
In the men’s 1,500m, world indoor champion Samuel Tefera will take on world indoor mile record-holder Yomif Kejelcha who is also the world's 1000m silver medalist and both will have an eye on Cornelius Chirchir’s meeting record of 3:31.17 that has stood since 2003.
Organizers of the Golden Spike meeting have also confirmed that two-time world champion Karsten Warholm will compete in the 400m hurdles.
The Norwegian won at the Diamond League meeting in Stockholm last month in a European record of 46.87, the second-fastest time in history behind Kevin Young’s 46.78 world record from the 1992 Olympic Games.
Having come within 0.09 of Young’s mark, Warholm now wants another chance to break the world record. “It has been exactly two years since I was there last time for Continental Cup, but this will be my first appearance at the Golden Spike meeting,” he said.