Neeraj Chopra, Avinash Sable India's Biggest Hopes In Diamond League Season Finale

Javelin throw star Neeraj Chopra will have lofty expectations to live up to, while for steeplechaser Avinash Sable, it would be an opportunity to make up for a disappointing Olympics, when the the star-studded Diamond League season finale begins here on Friday, featuring the best of world athletics. The showpiece is spread over two days for the first time and the field features top athletes from all continents, including an unprecedented number of Olympic medal winners, who will be vying for the top honours in 32 disciplines.

Pole vault world record holder Armand Duplantis, American sprint queen Sha'Carri Richardson, and superstar hurdler Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone are among the big names who will light up the King Baudouin Stadium here.

National record-holding 3000m steeplechaser Sable, after finishing 11th in the Olympic Games, will be in action on Friday in his maiden appearance in the DL season finale.

Chopra, who added a silver to his Olympic medal tally in Paris following a historic gold in the Tokyo Games, will be aiming to end his season on a high on Saturday.

It is the first time that a DL finale features two Indians.

Sable finished 14th in the overall Diamond League standings with three points from two meetings. But four athletes ranked higher than him -- Lamecha Girma (injured) of Ethiopia, Geordie Beamish of New Zealand, Ryuji Mura of Japan and Hillary Bor of the USA -- pulled out, allowing him to sneak inside the top 12 cut-off.

Five meetings out of the 14 in the DL series across the world this season had men's 3000m steeplechase event.

The 29-year-old Sable had finished sixth with a national record time of 8:09.91 -- bettering his own earlier mark -- in the Paris leg of the Diamond League on July 7. He was