WORLD CHAMPIONS AREGAWI AND SUM CLASH IN STOCKHOLM – IAAF DIAMOND LEAGUE

Swedish favourite Abeba Aregawi is among 12 World champions – including Kenya’s Asbel Kiprop and Ezekiel Kemboi, USA’s David Oliver, Ethiopia’s Meseret Defar, Czech Republic’s Zuzana Hejnova, Russia’s Svetlana Shkolina, Colombia’s Caterine Ibarguen and Germany’s Christina Obergfoll – competing at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Stockholm on Thursday (22).

However, Aregawi’s chosen distance at the DN Galan meeting is over 800m rather than the 1500m at which she won her gold medal at Moscow last week.

Aregawi, who has run a Swedish record of 1:59.20 for the shorter distance this year, first emerged as an 800m runner by winning the Ethiopian Championships in 2009 but has since concentrated on the metric mile.

She faces a major challenge to her adaptability in front of a home crowd in the historic Olympic Stadium, which hosted athletics at the 1912 Olympic Games and remains one of the oldest athletics arenas in the world, against a field which includes five of the top six from Moscow including the Kenyan gold medallist Eunice Sum.

Sum is also an adaptable athlete, having raced mainly over 1500m earlier this season before deciding to go for the 800m at her national trials.

Also challenging will be the USA’s IAAF World Championships 800m bronze medallist Brenda Martinez and her compatriot whose audacious front-running effort only narrowly failed to get her on to the podium, Alysia Johnson Montano.

Two other Moscow finalists, Russia’s London 2012 Olympic Games bronze medallist Yekaterina Poistogova and the USA’s 2012 World junior champion Ajee Wilson, will also be in the field for what promises to be an intriguing and competitive race.

Will the dream go on for Hejnova?

Hejnova is having a dream of a year; having arrived unbeaten in Moscow, she was a commanding winner of the 400m Hurdles final in 52.83.

The Czech hurdler is already out of reach in the Diamond Race, but the USA’s Moscow silver medallist Delilah Mohammad, Great Britain’s Eilidh Child and Ukraine’s Hanna Yaroshchuk, who were respectively fifth and sixth in the final, as well as Jamaica’s Kaliese Spencer, will all be asking this question of Hejnova on the night: have you anything left to prove?

Defar will take on a field over 3000m which includes the Kenyans who finished second and fourth behind her in Moscow, Mercy Cherono and Viola Kibiwot.

Shannon Rowbury, seventh in the Moscow final, heads a strong US challenge that also includes Gabriele Anderson and Jordan Hasay but Defar might find strongest opposition coming from fellow Ethiopian Genzege Dibaba, who was eighth in the World 1500m final.

Victory would allow Defar to jump ahead of her close domestic rival Tirunesh Dibaba, the World 10,000m champion who currently leads her in the Diamond Race by two points.

Kiprop seemingly won as he pleased to successfully defend his World 1500m title in Moscow. Silver and bronze medallists Matt Centrowitz and Johan Cronje are absent, but Kiprop will not be underestimating a field which contains Kenyan trials winner Silas Kiplagat and another compatriot who took the running out from the start in Moscow before missing out on a medal by one place, Nixon Chepseba.

Watch out too for Djibouti’s Ayanleh Souleiman, the Moscow 800m bronze medallist, who will want to prove his quality after failing to qualify for the final in a slow and bumpy semi-final race which saw him almost tripped.

Another Kenyan, Bethwell Birgen, fourth fastest in the world this year with 3:30.77, also failed to reach the Moscow final but will also be a threat and USA’s Leonel Manzano is similarly motivated.