The Peninsula
The world champion, the Diamond League record champion and the world record holder will all go head to head in the men’s pole vault at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Doha later this month.
2019 World Championship medallists Sam Kendricks (USA), Mondo Duplantis (SWE) and Piotr Lisek (POL), as well as London 2012 Olympic gold medallist Renaud Lavillenie (FRA), will battle it out in the pole vault at the Wanda Doha Diamond League on September 25.
Two-time world champion Kendricks is the Rio 2016 Olympic Games bronze medallist. He finished second to Duplantis with a 6.02m jump at the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on September 2, the second-highest vault of his career.
World record holder Duplantis, runner-up to Kendricks in Doha at the World Championships last year and European champion (2018), is in outstanding form. His exceptional indoor season – which peaked with an incredible 6.18m clearance in Glasgow in February – has continued outdoors, and he jumped a national outdoor record and world lead of 6.07m, the best outdoor vault in the world for 26 years, to take the victory in the fading light of Lausanne.
Lisek was second to Kendricks in London and third behind Kendricks and Duplantis in Doha. He has a season’s best of 5.90m from the Wieslaw Maniak Memorial in Szczecin on August 16.
Lavillenie, the most experienced of the quartet, backed up his London triumph with Olympic silver in Rio 2016 and over the last decade has won a multitude of global medals, including seven Diamond Trophies.
Duplantis, unbeaten this season to date, said: “After Lausanne I was desperate to get back out and compete, I felt like I was in the zone and it’s hard to take a step back in those situations, but I had to play safe."
Doha’s Qatar Sports Club will host the revised 12-event programme - the fourth and final competitive meeting of the truncated 2020 Wanda Diamond League season - which includes sprint hurdles and 800m for both men and women; 100m, 3000m and long jump for women; and 200m, 400m, 1500m and pole vault for men.