There are five events across the programme: the women’s 800m wheelchair, the men’s 1500m wheelchair, the men’s 1500m ambulant, and men’s and women’s 100m ambulant races.
16-time T34 world champion Hannah Cockroft will warm-up for her tilt at more Paralympic titles later this summer at the scene of her breakthrough on the international stage. Hurricane Hannah burst into the spotlight on ‘Thriller Thursday’ and the London 2012 Paralympic Games in this stadium, and she will be back on the stage today looking to impress the home crowd.
She will face tough opposition against compatriot Sammi Kinghorn who competes in the T53 classification. The Scot is in blistering form this season, setting PBs from 100m up to 1500m. The British duo will be the two main contenders in this one with Belgium’s Lea Bayekula and Ireland’s Shauna Bocquet adding further firepower to this exciting match-up.
The men’s wheelchair race will see first-time world medallist from Kobe, Nathan Maguire, take on Paralympic legend David Weir over the three-and-three-quarter lap distance. Maguire won T54 800m bronze in Japan back in May after eight years of competing on GB teams. Canada’s Brent Lakatos, a multiple Paralympic medallist, adds further quality to the line-up.
The ambulant sprints are loaded with domestic talent with Paralympic champions Sophie Hahn and Thomas Young among the start lists.
Hahn (T38), who won a pair of world bronze medals last year, lines up against Commonwealth champion Olivia Breen (T38) in the mixed classification sprint. World universal 4x100m relay medallist Ali Smith (T38) is also among those in the women’s race.
Young, triumphant in Tokyo three years ago, secured silver in the T38 100m in Kobe back in May, and he takes on T12 100m bronze medallist Zac Shaw and T13 sprinter and long jumper Zak Skinner in what is expected to be an entertaining contest.
Back after winning a thrilling race in 2023, world champion Ben Sandilands returns to lead the men’s ambulant 1500m entries. The Scottish athlete, who won world gold in the T20 classification – for athletes with an intellectual impairment – in Paris in 2023, will be using the event as the perfect preparation for his aspiration to add Paralympic gold to his collection in the French capital this summer. The Fife man has already been selected in the first wave for the Paralympic Games. The race kicks off the para races on Saturday afternoon at 12:42pm.
The London Athletics Meet – which will see the return of the world’s best athletes to the London Stadium following a record-breaking sell-out in 2023 – is the tenth meeting of the 2024 Wanda Diamond League series. Taking place six days before the Olympic Games Opening Ceremony, the event will serve as the perfect prelude to Paris.
