RABAT – Ruswahl Samaai of South Africa and home athlete Yahya Berrabah will have a special interest in how Sunday night’s men’s long jump works out as they are joint holders of the Diamond League meeting record of 8.38m.
Twenty-seven-year-old Samaai, a Commonwealth and world bronze medallist, set his mark in 2016, the first year when the Rabat meeting stepped up from World Challenge to Diamond League status after the New York Adidas Grand Prix was dropped from the calendar.
Berrabah, 10 years older, was the first to jump 8.38m in this arena in 2009, and he is in the field at the age of 37, holder of the Moroccan record at 8.40m.
With talents such as Olympic champion Jeff Henderson of the United States, Samaai’s teammate Luvo Manyonga, the world champion, and prodigious new talent Juan Miguel Echevarria of Cuba also in the field, that record looks distinctly vulnerable.
But if it goes, how fitting that its joint holders will be there to see it out…