PARIS :Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino outfought Salwa Eid Naser to win the women’s 400 metres at the Paris Diamond League meet on Friday, Faith Cherotich won the steeplechase and Grace Stark set a personal best to outgun Tobi Amusan in the 100m hurdles.
Dominican Republic’s Paulino needed a season’s best time of 48.81, a new meeting record, as the world champion came from behind to pip Bahrain’s Naser, who took silver at last year’s Olympics.
“All I focused on was to get to through to the finish line feeling strong, although I am not feeling very well, my stomach has been playing up a bit,” Paulino said.
Kenyan Cherotich took bronze at the Paris Olympics behind Ugandan silver medallist Peruth Chemutai in the 3,000m steeplechase, and the pair left the rest of the field behind early in the race.
This time 20-year-old Cherotich came out on top as she left her rival behind in the closing metres, with a personal best time of 8:53.37, to repeat her wins in Doha and Oslo.
“It’s great that I have already won three Diamond Leagues this season being the youngest in the field,” Cherotich said.
“The big goal are the World Championships in Tokyo and I want to win.”
Nigeria’s world record holder and 2022 world champion Amusan had to settle for second place as American 24-year-old Stark led from the start to win the women’s 100m hurdles in 12.21 seconds, knocking one tenth of a second off her personal best.
“I wanted to break that 12.3 so bad, I was really pushing for it in Stockholm,” Stark said.
“I’m just so excited to break 12.3, I really knew I could do it this year.”
In the men’s 400m hurdles, Olympic champion Rai Benjamin barely broke sweat in setting a meeting record 46.93, doing enough down the home straight to hold off Qatar’s Abderrahman Samba, who had set the previous record back in 2018.
“I just took it easy because we just had a really fast race in Stockholm. There was no need to come out and force something, especially because the season is so long,” Benjamin said.
MAHUCHIKH OUTJUMPED
Ukrainian Olympic high jump champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh broke the world record with a leap of 2.10 meters at last year’s meeting, but she could only manage 1.97 this time to take second place behind Australia’s Nicola Olyslagers.
The men’s 1,500m may not have been a Diamond League event, but the race had the home crowd on their feet as France’s Azeddine Habz smashed the national record with a world leading time of 3:27.49.
Habz took almost a second and a half off the previous record set in 2003, and ran the sixth fastest time ever over the distance.
“It’s incredible, there is no other word,” Habz said.
“I had come to this meeting with the goal of breaking the French record.”
Kenya’s Phanuel Kipkosgei Koech came second with an impressive 3:27.72, breaking the world under-20 record.
Another non-Diamond League race, the men’s 3000m steeplechase, saw the return to the track of Ethiopia’s Lamecha Girma after his heavy fall which left him unconscious at the Paris Olympics.
Girma returned to the scene of his world record from 2023, and was happy to get the race, and win, under his belt.
“This is a big thing for me today, especially after the Paris Olympics,” Girma said.
“It feels it was a long time ago, so this was very important for me. The legs not much of a problem, but I was a little scared. Now that the race is finished I feel much better.”
