media_artricles :: 2018

Richards makes IAAF Diamond League debut

T&T's Jereem Richards is set to make his debut at the IAAF Diamond League on Friday in the capital city of Qatar, Doha.

Richards will face the starter in the Men's 200 metres sprint at the first of 14 meetings. The global one-day event is spread across Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.

"I'm excited to be in the Diamond League. It's definitely going to be a world-class race in terms of the top 200m runners in the world right now and some of the most decorative 200m runners.

"I am definitely looking forward to running a pr (personal record) or winning. I believe that going out with the best competition, I will have to put my best foot forward and that's what I am going out there to do."

The World's 200m bronze medallist will get a chance at revenge when he comes up against reigning World champion, Ramil Guliyev of Turkey. The duo last met in the World Championships final and Guliyev pulled off a shock victory, winning in a time of 20.09.

Richards got the bronze by a margin of just one-thousandth of a second as he clocked 20.107 to cross behind South African Wayde Van Niekerk (20.106).

Richards and Guliyev will race against a tough line-up that includes Olympic silver medallist Andre De Grasse of Canada, last year's Diamond League champion Noah Lyles of the USA, and surprise entry Omar McLeod of Jamaica, who is the Olympic and World Champion in the 110m hurdles.

It was only some two weeks ago that Richards emerged the winner of the 200m dash at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast in Australia.

"Since coming back after Commonwealth, I probably had a day off and that was just one easy day, but after that it was back to training because you have to reset your mind," said Richards, who denied England's Zharnel Hughes the gold medal in the final after the Englishman was disqualified for making contact with Richards before he crossed the finish line in first place. Both clocked 201.12 seconds.

Hughes was disqualified on the grounds of a lane violation. England lodged an appeal in the aftermath but it was unsuccessful and the disqualification stood.

The other participants in the 200m for the Doha meet are Aaron Brown of Canada (Commonwealth silver medallist), Jamaican Rasheed Dwyer and Great Britain's Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake.

This year's Diamond League meetings will also be staged in Shanghai, Eugene, Rome, Oslo, Stockholm, Paris, Lausanne, Rabat, Monaco, London, Birmingham, Zurich and Brussels.

Athletes earn points in the first 12 meetings in the road to the final. At the two final meetings, held in Zurich and Brussels on consecutive days, $100,000 will be at stake in each of the 32 Diamond disciplines, including $50,000 for each winner.

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