Yared Nuguse holds off world champion Isaac Nader in Rabat; Max Burgin runs 1:42.98
In his first track race of the year Nuguse won the 1500 m in a meeting record 3:30.35; Burgin beat Emmanuel Wanyonyi over 800 m and Audrey Werro ran 1:56.56.
Photograph: Audrey Werro in the women's 800 m semi-finals at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, by Erik van Leeuwen, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsYared Nuguse had not raced on the track in 2026 before the Rabat Diamond League on Sunday 31 May. He won the 1500 m in 3:30.35, a meeting record, holding off Portugal's Isaac Nader, the world champion, who ran 3:30.43. Azeddine Habz of France was third in 3:30.68. Eight hundredths between an American and the world champion, at the end of May, in a race that was supposed to be a tune-up.
The men's 800 m went to Max Burgin of Great Britain in 1:42.98, the fastest time of his season, ahead of Kenya's Emmanuel Wanyonyi, 1:43.56, and Algeria's Slimane Moula, 1:43.73. Audrey Werro of Switzerland took the women's 800 m in a meeting record 1:56.56 from Tsige Duguma, 1:57.24, and Lilian Odira, 1:57.27, two weeks after Duguma had run 3:55 for 1500 m in Shaoxing. In the women's 1500 m Freweyni Hailu of Ethiopia won in 3:58.25, with Haregeweyni Kalayu second in a personal best 3:59.28 and France's Agathe Guillemot third in 3:59.60.
It was a night of meeting records in Rabat: Nuguse's, Werro's, Kenny Bednarek's 19.69 in the 200 m and Joe Kovacs' 22.58 m in the shot put, with Soufiane El Bakkali's world-leading 7:57.25 in the steeplechase and Frederik Ruppert's European record behind him.
Three Diamond League meetings down and the middle distances already look like August. The European Championships in Birmingham, and the Ultimate Championship in Budapest after it, will have deep fields.
Sources: World Athletics.
