Sunday's shorter session on day three of the 2019 Athletics World Championships in Doha still sees five gold medals up for grabs.
Every morning during the championships, Standard Sport will be bringing you a preview of the day's action.
Gold may be too much to ask, but medal for Muir would be just grand
If Laura Muir’s chances of taking the gold medal at these world championships didn’t end with her calf injury at the London Diamond League, then they may well have done the moment Sifan Hassan decided to take on the 1500m rather than 5000m after her 10,000m triumph.
Presuming fatigue doesn’t set in for the Dutch athlete, who broke the mile world record earlier this year, it would be a surprise if she does not complete an historic double this evening.
Defending champion Faith Kipyegon has looked in better shape than was expected, Gudaf Tsegay will surely look to make it a proper test, Jenny Simpson will inevitably get her tactics spot on, and Muir’s training partner, Gabriela Debues-Stafford cannot be ignored either.
However, if the Scot can pick up her first global outdoor medal after a torrid preparation, she will have more than earned her right to be spoken about, as Katarina Johnson-Thompson suggested on Wednesday, as part of a trio of British women who will lead this team towards Tokyo.
Sprint relays looking to add to British medal haul
A British quartet shorn of two of the men who helped them to win gold in London two years still managed to qualify fastest for what appears to a stacked 4x100m final this evening. They are likely to name an unchanged side, with Adam Gemili and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake the two survivors from 2017, joined by the in-form Zharnel Hughes and GB captain Richard Kilty.
Yesterday’s heats included the fastest time in the world this year, two area records, and five national records as seven of the eight finalists broke the 38-second barrier. Surprisingly, (or perhaps not, since they’ve led the ‘how many ways can you mess up a relay?’ stakes since the British baton revolution), the exception was the USA.
In the absence of a strong Jamaican outfit, the US look the standout quartet on paper, based on individual form, but had a right good go at crashing out in the first round with two horrendously botched changeovers. Only the kindness of the draw spared them – they took the third automatic spot in their heat, but would have finished seventh in the other.
If they get it right, their raw speed could still see them through, but if not, Britain are at the head of a queue of slick outfits ready to take advantage.
The women’s 4x100m quartet have the psychological (and literal) advantage of being able to welcome the newly-crowned world 200m champion Dina Asher-Smith back into the fold for their own final this evening as they look to go one better than their silver medal from London.
The 23-year-old was rested for yesterday’s heat, where the Brits qualified second fastest behind Jamaica, though the USA have the potential to strengthen their quartet. The Jamaican and American teams are not vintage by their own standards, but crucially don’t tend to have the baton woes that have occasionally blighted their men.
Brit watch: Callum Hawkins
With Muir the big individual medal chance on the track tonight and Jake Wightman, Josh Kerr and Neil Gourley all ready to go in the men’s equivalent tomorrow, the back end of the championships have taken on a distinctly Scottish feel from a British point of view.
That will only be exaggerated when Callum Hawkins goes in the men’s marathon in the early hours tonight. Hawkins has already proved his championship pedigree with a top-ten finish at the Rio Olympics and fourth-place in London two years ago. He bounced back from a horrible collapse when leading last year’s Commonwealth Games marathon by breaking the Scottish record at the London Marathon in April.
Conditions are unlikely to suit – he won’t be alone there – but with so many of the big names preoccupied with the Berlin and Chicago marathons, plus Eliud Kipchoge’s 1:59 attempt, he may have a shot at a medal, especially if the race crumbles as the women’s equivalent did a week ago.
How big can Rojas go?
We were treated to our first world record of these championships in the women’s 400m hurdles yesterday, and there’s tentative speculation that we could go close to another in the women’s triple jump final later on.
Venezuela’s Yulimar Rojas comes in as huge favourite – her personal best 15.41m jump from a meeting in Spain last month has her ranked number two on the all-time list, just 9cm shy of Inessa Kravets’ 24-year-old world record, and is almost half a metre further than anyone else in the field has gone this year.
