The pair are among a group announced today by organisers that includes six reigning world or Olympic champions who will kick-off their 2015 Diamond League campaigns at the opening competition of the 14-meeting series which gets underway for the sixth straight year in the Qatari capital.<\/p>\n
Perkovic, also the reigning World champion, has already thrown beyond the formidable 70-metres mark this season, reaching 70.08m at the Croatian winter championships, a throw exactly one metre shy of her career best. No stranger to Doha, the 24-year-old won there in 2013 with a 68.23m meeting record and has claimed the Diamond Race in each of the last three seasons.<\/p>\n
Kovacs meanwhile, the latest star to rise from the loaded U.S. shot put stable, threw a personal best 22.35m in Westwood, California in early April, a put that landed him on the doorstep of the event\u2019s all-time top-10. The effort by the 25-year-old American who is now history\u2019s all-time No. 12 was no fluke; on 25 April he reached 22.06m, an effort nearly a metre better than anyone else in the world has thrown this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cSandra and Joe\u2019s fabulous early season form bode really well for the prospects of some very good performances in the throwing events next weekend,\u201d said Mr. Dahlan Al Hamad, President of the Qatar Athletics Federation. \u201cThe strong competition they\u2019ll face and the near perfect conditions we expect could result in performances athletes will be chasing all season.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perkovic will take on Australia\u2019s Dani Samuels, the 2009 World champion who improved her career best to 67.99 last year, and Melina Robert-Michon, who claimed World silver in 2013 at age 34.<\/p>\n
Kovacs will face German David Storl, who at age 24 already has two World titles (2011 and 2013) and an Olympic silver to his name. Another American, Ryan Whiting, knows Doha well, having set the 22.28m meeting record in 2013 en route to winning that season\u2019s Diamond Race. Whiting took back-to-back World indoor titles in 2012 and 2014, defeating Storl at both. <\/p>\n
The fan favourite? Quite likely Reese Hoffa, a four-time winner in Doha who won his second Diamond Race title last season at age 37. The 2007 World champion also struck Olympic bronze in 2012.<\/p>\n
Sanchez vs Culson and Jackson over the full lap hurdles<\/b><\/p>\n
Meanwhile, most eyes will be on Felix Sanchez from the Dominican Republic in the men\u2019s 400m hurdles. The 37-year-old has illustrated phenomenal longevity, first with consecutive World titles in 2001 and 2003, followed by Olympic gold in 2004 and eight years later in 2012.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll be facing a strong field that includes Puerto Rico\u2019s Javier Culson, the Diamond Race winner in 2012 and 2013 and two-time World silver medallist and reigning Olympic bronze medallist. Two-time Doha winner and meeting record holder L.J. Van Zyl of South Africa will also be in the field, along with former World champion Bershawn Jackson of the US, also a past winner in Doha. Van Zyl set the meet standard of 48.11 in 2011 while Jackson who has clocked 48.61 this season, the fastest among entrants thus far, was the winner on the Doha track in 2010.<\/p>\n
Vesely vs Walcott in the Javelin<\/b><\/p>\n
There will be no shortage of star power in the men\u2019s javelin throw field, one that features the reigning Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott from Trinidad and Tobago taking on Vitezslav Vesely, the reigning World champion. <\/p>\n
Walcott, who celebrated his 22nd<\/sup> birthday last month, took the world by storm with his surprise victory at the 2012 Olympic Games, less than a month after claiming the World junior title. Last season he finished second at the Commonwealth Games and took third at the Continental Cup<\/p>\n Vesely, who won in Doha in 2013, will nonetheless start as the man to beat. The 2012 and 2013 Diamond Race winner, the Czech, who is coached by world record holder Jan Zelezny, won the Continental Cup last year and took silver at the European championships, and has an 88.34m personal best to his credit from 2012.<\/p>\n No one in the field, however, has thrown as far as Finn Tero Pitkamaki, the 2007 World champion, whose 91.53 career best from 2005 places him seventh among javelin throwers all-time. After a slight lull, his career rebounded in 2013 when he took silver at the World Championships.<\/p>\n And finally, the women\u2019s 3000m Steeplechase features yet another Ethiopia \u2013 Kenya battle. The former will be well represented by Sofia Assefa and Hiwott Ayelew, at 9:09.00 and 9:09.61 respectively the fastest in the field. Assefa took bronze at the 2012 Olympics and 2013 World Championships while Ayelew finished runner-up at least season\u2019s Continental Cup.<\/p>\n Defending Kenyan honour will be Lidya Chepkurui, the 2013 World silver medallist who set the Doha meeting record of 9:13.75 in 2013.<\/p>\n ……………………………………………. Judging by their early season form, shot putter Joe Kovacs and Olympic discus throw champion...","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":552,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"city":[],"class_list":["post-551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.diamondleague.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Doha 2015www.diamondleague-doha.com<\/link>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"