Diamond League gets it right by setting up duel between Olympic and world champions

This is a column by Morgan Campbell, who writes opinion for CBC Sports.  For more information about  CBC's Opinion section , please see the  FAQ .

The athletes asked, the fans amplified, and the people signing the cheques at Diamond League Rabat, the track meet scheduled for this Sunday in Morocco, delivered the hottest matchup in the sport.

Fred Kerley from the U.S. against Italy's Lamont Jacobs over 100 metres.

Jacobs is the long jumper turned sprint specialist turned surprise Olympic champion — two summers ago he ran 9.80 to win gold in Tokyo. And Kerley is the quarter-miler turned 100-metre dasher turned world champion. Last summer in Oregon, he ran 9.86 to lead a U.S. medal sweep in the world championships' glamour event.

Conclusively.

Until Jacobs and Kerley's next meeting.

Scheduled for the following Friday in Rome.

We should probably also mention some of the six other sprinters contracted to run in Rabat, because they matter.

Trayvon Bromell will be there. He won 100-metre bronze at the world championships last year. Ferdinand Omanyala of Kenya will also line up. He ran a world-leading 9.84 seconds in the 100 metres earlier this month. 

No, a full-field, eight-lane 100-metre race isn't exactly the one-on-one rundown social media has been asking for, match races being the latest in a series of ideas track and field stakeholders hope will broaden and deepen their sport's appeal. And they have a point. Most of us would rather watch Tyson Fury against Oleksandr Usyk than a battle royale with eight heavyweights. People wanted Bailey-Johnson 2.0, and meet directors delivered… a track meet.

But for all their parallels, including endless search for a product that consistently pleases both avid and