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Lapierre on runway at Rabat Diamond League

Published Sun 16 Jul 2017

Silver medallist from the last world championships Fabrice Lapierre will be looking for consistent form on the board at the Rabat Diamond League early on Monday morning.

His season has been mixed with a number of seemingly long fouls and windy marks that include a monster 8.50-metre effort (+4.4) at the Longhorn Invitational in late April.

Last month he set a season’s best at the Somerville Boston Games with a legal leap of 8.03 before his last competition in mid June at the Galan in Stockholm which produced a 7.78 jump.

Fellow Australian Henry Frayne is now in the top 20 world rankings leading into the championships thanks to an 8.21 jump in Switzerland two weeks ago.

Lapierre, who finished tenth at the Rio Olympics a year after claiming world silver in Beijing, features on a strong entry list set to compete in Morocco.

However, he will not have to face South African world leader Luvo Mangyonga, who has the four biggest jumps this year including an 8.65 from April, but his compatriot Rashwal Samaai is down to jump.

Samaai set his personal best of 8.49 earlier this year and will be joined by US youngster Jarrion Lawson (8.27 SB) and Swedish jumper Michel Torneus (8.30 SB).

Ryan Gregson returns to the track in a 3000m after placing fourth at the London Diamond League over 1500m, a few seconds outside his season’s best of 3:34.37.

He enters the race with a personal best of 7:44.90 and will be competing against 1500m bronze medallist from the 2015 world championships Abdalaati Iguider.

The local favourite has a career best of 7:30.09 over 3000m, who will be joined by Olympic 5000m finalist Albert Rop and Vincent Kibet who placed fourth in the 1500m at the London Diamond League.

Kathryn Mitchell is an Australian athlete in career-best form after recently throwing a personal best of 66.12 to place third at the Lausanne Diamond League.

Her season’s best ranks third on the entry list, behind two-time Olympic champion Barbora Spotakova who took the win in London with a 68.26 throw.

Zoe Buckman competes in the 1500m after last month posting a qualifying mark of 4:06.30 for the upcoming world championships.

In-form Polish runner and 2016 European champion Angelika Cichocka will toe the line with a 4:01.61 personal best set at the Paris Diamond League.

The only woman in the field that has ever broken four minutes is US runner Shannon Rowbury who clocked 4:04.61 at the Pre Classic.

--- Catch the action live on Eurosport from 4:00am AEST