Three-time world champion Asbel Kiprop and Olympic champion Matthew Centrowitz will return to the Prefontaine Classic on 27 May to compete in the IAAF Diamond League meeting’s most famous race, the Bowerman Mile.

Sixteen reigning Olympic and world champions will assemble in Doha on Friday (5) to help kick off the 2017 IAAF Diamond League series, which gets underway for the eighth straight year in the Qatari capital.

Another wave of Olympic medallists and world champions have announced their participation in the first meeting of the 2017 IAAF Diamond League season in Doha, adding to an already incredible list of athletics superstars who will compete on 5 May at the Qatar Sports Club.

Kenya’s mixed relay secured the nation’s first gold of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships Kampala 2017 with an eight-second victory over east African rivals Ethiopia.

On the eve of the IAAF World Cross Country Championships Kampala 2017, some of the world’s top middle and long distance runners joined IAAF President Sebastian Coe, dignitaries from the Local Organising Committee and IAAF Ambassadors Paul Tergat and Tegla Loroupe at the pre-event press conference at the Sheraton Hotel in central Kampala on Saturday (25).

In the ninth part of our 2016 end-of-year reviews, statisticians A Lennart Julin and Mirko Jalava look back on the best middle-distance performances of the year.

Of the dozens of Athletissima match-ups that feature prominently on tomorrow evening’s IAAF Diamond League meeting programme, among the most intriguing is the one pitting Matthew Centrowitz of the US, the freshly-minted Olympic 1500m champion, and Asbel Kiprop, Kenya’s three-time world 1500m champion, over the rarely-run 1000m distance.

The last two Olympic champions, Asbel Kiprop and Taoufik Makhloufi, qualified with ease for Saturday’s final from the first of two semi-finals which followed the stereotype for championships middle-distance racing at this level of a major championship.

Three-time world champion and 2008 Olympic gold medallist Asbel Kiprop progressed smoothly to Thursday’s semi-finals with a comfortable win in the first heat on Tuesday.

The big favourite – on the basis that he has won the past three world titles and was the 2008 Olympic champion – has to be Asbel Kiprop.

The IAAF Diamond League meeting in Monaco has a reputation for high-class performances. With the Rio Olympics just a month away, the clashes in store at Herculis on Friday (15) will have added spice.

Athletics Kenya has nominated a team of 50 athletes (including reserves) to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.