The gold and silver medal winners in the 100 meters at the Olympics, Julien Alfred and Sha’Carri Richardson, will run against each other on Thursday in their first events since the Paris Games.
Watch live on Peacock on Thursday from 2-4 p.m. ET, as the women’s 100m, starring Alfred and Richardson, is the main event of a Diamond League meet in Zurich, Switzerland.
Olympic gold and silver medalists are competing in a number of events in Zurich. This includes two events on Wednesday: a peculiar 100-meter race involving 400-meter hurdler Karsten Warholm and pole vaulter Mondo Duplantis, and a women’s pole vault near a train station.
Then, 33 days after finishing first and second in Paris, Alfred and Richardson return to the track on Thursday. Alfred of Saint Lucia becomes the first female to beat Richardson in the 100 meters in 2024, winning in 10.72 seconds to 10.87.
Half of the discrepancy was accounted for by their reaction times, which were.221 for Richardson and.144 for Alfred.
Who is competing at Diamond League Zurich?
In this field, which competes at a train station in Zurich, are the top five athletes from the Olympics. Included are the last three Olympic champions: Greek Katerina Stefanidi, American Katie Moon, and Australian Nina Kennedy. Kennedy only loses once a year, in May. Moon is aiming for her first international victory since the Diamond League Final of the previous season, despite dealing with an Achilles ailment in 2024.
The two-time Olympic pole vault winner goes up against the Tokyo Olympic 400-meter hurdles champion over 100 meters in a unique one-off. In his most recent year of sprinting, Duplantis 24, finished in 10.73 and 10.57 (with a 2.1 meter/second tailwind) as a Louisiana high school student in 2018. At her final 100-meter race in 2017, Warholm, 28, ran an indoor time of 10.49.
Alfred set a national record of 10.72 seconds in Paris, making it the second fastest time in the world for 2024. Richardson ran a personal best of 10.65 seconds to win the 2023 World title, and a hundredth of a second quicker to win the U.S. Olympic Trials (10.71).
This is also where the Olympic gold and silver medallists are entered. Letsile Tebogo of Botswana won three Diamond League races in a nine-day period in late August, capping his triumph in Paris. Among them was a triumph in the 100 meters last Friday in Rome, where Tebogo finished ahead of schedule with a time of 9.87, one hundredth of his personal best. In a Diamond League competition in Poland on August 25, American Kenny Bednarek finished third behind the winning Tebogo after finishing second to Tebogo in Paris.
Cole Hocker, Josh Kerr, Yared Nuguse, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen are the top four competitors from the thrilling Olympic final in Paris that are entering. Following his victory over Hocker in a Diamond League event in Lausanne, On August 25, Ingebrigtsen smashed a world record that had stood for 28 years in the 3000m in Poland.
