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Indian steeplechaser Avinash Sable on Saturday, September 2, qualified for his maiden Diamond League final. He finished fifth in the men’s 3000m steeplechase at the Xiamen Diamond League meet in China.
Sable clocked 8:16.27s in the overcast conditions at the Egret Stadium. The timing was just five seconds short of his national record (8:11.20s) which he set at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games en route to clinching the silver medal.
Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali, the reigning Olympic and World Champion, won the race with a meet record of 8:10.31s. Ethiopia’s Samuel Firewu finished second by clocking 8:11.29s and Amos Serem of Kenya stood at third position with 8:14.41s. Abraham Kibiwot, the 2022 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, finished fourth with 8:15.87s in Xiamen.
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Sable finished sixth in the overall standings with a total of 11 points from four races to reach the Diamond League final, where the top 10 steeplechasers will compete.
Avinash Sable overcomes shock of World Championships
At the Xiamen Diamond League meet in China, Avinash Sable bettered his recent performance at the World Athletics Championships in Budapest Hungary, where he finished in seventh place with a timing of 8:22.24s in the heats. Only the top five finishers of the three heats qualified for the final.
With his performance in Xiamen, the 28-year-old becomes only the third track and field athlete from India to enter the 2023 Diamond League final.
Neeraj Chopra, the Olympic and World Champion in Javelin throw, and long jumper Murali Sreeshankar, the Commonwealth Games silver medallist, are other Indians set to compete in the final round.
The Diamond League is a series of 14 meetings where male and female athletes compete in 16 disciplines held between May and September. In each meeting, an athlete earns the allotted points from one to eight depending on the position they finish.
The 2023 Diamond League final will take place in Eugene, the United States of America (USA), on September 16 and 17.
