Diamond League Final track & field event from Brussels | CBC Sports

Click on the video player above beginning at 2 p.m. ET to watch live action from Day 2 of the Diamond League track & field event from Brussels. 

Canadian middle-distance runner Marco Arop and Canadian pole vaulter Alysha Newman will try to become first-time Diamond League Trophy winners on Saturday at the 48th Allianz Memorial Van Damme meet.

In addition to the Trophy and $30,000 US, winners will earn a wild-card entry to next year’s worlds.

Live streaming coverage of Saturday’s track and field action at the Diamond League Final begins at 2 p.m. ET and is available at CBCSports.ca, the CBC Sports app and CBC Gem.

Priscilla Lopes-Schliep (100m hurdles) was Canada’s first Diamond League champion in 2010 and Dylan Armstrong won men’s shot put a year later. Last September, Andre De Grasse sprinted to the men’s 200m title in 19.76 seconds.

Shot putter Sarah Mitton became Canada’s first-ever Diamond League Trophy winner in women’s shot put on Friday, beating two-time defending champion Chase Jackson of the United States.

Arop says he’ll break 800m world mark

Edmonton’s Arop arrived in Brussels brimming with confidence after lowering his national record to two minutes 13.13 seconds across 1,000 metres for the meet record at a World Athletics Continental Tour event in Zagreb, Croatia last Sunday.

At a pre-race news conference, Arop, who earned his first Olympic medal in Paris last month with silver in the men’s 800m competition, said he was heading to Brussels “to break the 800m world record. … The record is definitely going down.” Saturday’s race is scheduled for 3:40 p.m.

WATCH | Arop sets 800m meet record in Silesia win:

“He set the standard,” the 25-year-old Arop told CBC Sports’ Devin Heroux earlier this year. “If I can keep putting in the work I might get to his level.”

Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi went 1:41:11 to beat Arop in Lausanne on Aug. 22, three days before losing to the Canadian at the Silesia Diamond League in Poland. Wanyonyi won last year’s Diamond League Final over Arop by 5-100ths in Eugene, Ore.

WATCH | Arop 2nd to 800m rival Wanyonyi in 2023 DL Final:

Canada’s Alysha Newman captures pole vault bronze medal

Alysha Newman of Delaware, Ont., clears 4.85 good enough for the Olympic women’s pole vault bronze medal at Paris 2024.

Newman ‘hungry for more’

Newman, 30, will compete Saturday at 1:51 p.m. in her fourth Diamond League Final and first since 2019.

Last week, she cleared 4.82 metres for second place behind Olympic champion Nina Kennedy of Australia at the Weltklasse Zürich Diamond League event.

Newman cleared 4.73 the previous week at the Golden Gala in Rome in her first competition since a 4.85 effort for bronze at Stade de France on Aug. 7 when she became Canada’s first-ever Olympic medallist in women’s pole vault.

WATCH | Newman clears 4.85m for Olympic bronze in Paris:

Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo wins men’s 200m at Diamond League Zurich

Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo finishes first in the men’s 200-metre final at the Diamond League meet in Zurich with a time of 19.55.

“We are so close to the finish line but still hungry for more,” Newman said this week in an Instagram story.

On Sept. 6, 2019, the native of London, Ont., jumped 4.77 at the AG Memorial Van Damme in Brussels for third in the Diamond League Final.

Newman was also third in the 2017 season-ending championship when she set a then-Canadian mark of 4.75, one year after going 4.42 in her DL Final debut, also in Brussels.

Tebogo on torrid streak

Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo will be looking to complete an undefeated post-Olympics season in the men’s 200m on Saturday at 3:07 p.m.

Since his surprise 200m triumph last month at the Summer Games, he has achieved three Diamond League victories, which should motivate him as he eyes his first Diamond Trophy.

WATCH | Tebogo rules men’s 200m at Weltklasse Zurich:

Kipyegon’s drive for 5 Trophies

Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon, the Paris Olympic champion in the women’s 1,500m, is aiming for her fifth Diamond Trophy. She lowered her world record to three minute 49.04 seconds at the Meeting de Paris in early July.

Beatrice Chebet, who won Olympic gold in the 5,000m and 10,000m, is in Saturday’s field at 2:54 p.m. with Paris medallists Jessica Hull (silver) and Georgia Bell (bronze).