Canada's Marco Arop wins 2nd consecutive Diamond League 800m race
Toronto native Aaron Brown finishes 4th in 200m with wind-aided 20.18
Canada's Marco Arop held off Olympic champion Emmanuel Korir to win his second consecutive Diamond League 800-metre title on Thursday in Lausanne.
The 22-year-old from Edmonton, who didn't advance out of the semifinals in his Olympic debut earlier this month in Tokyo, ran one minute 44.50 seconds on a gusty night.
Arop beat what was nearly an identical field to the Olympic final. Korir, who made a push to catch Arop down the homestretch, was second in 1:44.62, while Kenyan teammate Ferguson Rotich, the silver medallist in Tokyo, was third on Thursday in 1:45.48.
Arop beat virtually the same field to win the Prefontaine Classic on Saturday in Eugene, Ore.
WATCH | Canada's Marco Arop wins 800m at Diamond League Lausanne:
Arop has a season best and person best of 1:43.26, only 6-100ths of a second off Brandon McBride's Canadian record.
The Canadian is relatively new to track and field, capturing his first international title at the Pan American Games in 2019 in Lima, Peru. He grew up playing basketball, and dreamt of one day playing in the NBA.
Canada's Brown finishes 4th in 200m
In the men's 200-metre event, Canadian Aaron Brown finished fourth with a wind-aided time of 20.18.
Brown's performance makes it his second consecutive fourth-place finish in Diamond League competition, finishing in the same spot at the Prefontaine Classic on Saturday in Eugene, Ore.
The Toronto native placed sixth in the event at the Tokyo Games.
Canadian long-distance runner Moh Ahmed finished ninth in the men's 3,000m with a season best time of 7:42.53.
The event was won by Norway's Jakob Ingebrigtsen with a season best time of 7:33.06. Ingebrigtsen was coming off a win in the Boweman Mile at the Prefontaine Classic, and he won gold in the 1,500m at Tokyo 2020.
Ahmed, from St. Catharines, Ont., achieved a personal best in the Boweman Mile at the Prefontaine Classic, and he won silver in the men's 5,000m in Tokyo.
Fraser-Pryce wins women's 100m
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce led a list of upsets at a blustery Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on Thursday as she beat Olympic sprint queen Elaine Thompson-Herah in the women's 100m.
Thompson-Herah was among an imposing list of Tokyo gold medallists who failed to reprise their form from the Olympics and were beaten in front a full house at La Pointaise Stadium.
The 29-year-old had run the second-fastest 100m of all-time last Saturday in blistering 10.54 seconds to win at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, but found herself beaten by her 34-year-old fellow Jamaican in one of the night's many surprises.
WATCH | Fraser-Pryce leads Jamaican sprint sweep in Lausanne:
Fraser-Pryce got out of the blocks quickest to finish in a personal best of 10.60, ahead of Thompson-Herah in 10.64 with Tokyo bronze medallist Shericka Jackson completing a Jamaican clean sweep of the top three places.
The trio are due to continue their rivalry, plus their bid to break Florence Griffith Joyner's 33-year-old world record of 10.49, at the next Diamond League meeting in Paris on Saturday.
Olympic champions Selemon Barega, Armand Duplantis, Steven Gardiner, Emmanuel Korir, Hansle Parchment and Karsten Warholm were all beaten but Ryan Crouser extended his winning streak to 21 successive meetings as he again blew away the opposition in the shot put.
Swede Duplantis finished a disappointing fourth in the pole vault as he failed at 5.82 with Olympic silver medallist Christopher Nilsen beating American compatriot Sam Kendricks to win the event.
With files from CBC Sports and Reuters
