Kenya’s 20-year-old Olympic champion Emmanuel Wanyonyi produced the top performance of a towering night of athletics at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on Thursday as he won the men’s 800m in 1:41.11.
That moved him to joint second on the world all-time list, tantalisingly adrift of the world record of 1:40.91 set by his compatriot and inspiration David Rudisha at the London 2012 Olympics.
Wanyonyi’s time exactly matched the then-world record set by Denmark’s Wilson Kipketer in 1997.
In a non-Diamond League race that included four of the five men who followed him home in Paris, Wanyonyi’s world-leading run was also a Diamond League record.
The pacemaker had taken the field through 400m in 49.32, a shade off the requested 49.20, with Wanyonyi a couple of paces behind him. The Olympic champion held off the challenge of Canada’s world champion Marco Arop, with the latter clocking 1:41.72 and third place going to France’s European champion Gabriel Tual in 1:42.30.
“I’m so happy to have run the world lead today in Lausanne,” said Wanyonyi. “I really loved the crowd and I hope for the best in Silesia.”
Women’s world 800m champion Mary Moraa finished comfortably in 1:57.91 with Britain’s Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Georgia Bell taking second place in 1:58.53 ahead of compatriot Jemma Reekie (1:58.73).
Grenada’s two-time world champion Anderson Peters produced a monumental performance in the javelin, culminating in a final-round meeting record of 90.61m.
Germany’s European silver medallist Julian Weber threw 87.08m, but was pushed into third place by the last effort of India’s world champion Neeraj Chopra, who produced a season’s best of 89.49m. Julius Yego was sixth with another impressive 83m throw.
