Avinash Sable finishes fifth at Stockholm Diamond League; protests hit event

Avinash Sable competed in the men’s 3000m steeplechase event at the Stockholm Diamond League. Image: Media_SAI/Twitter

Avinash Sable finished fifth in the men’s 3000m steeplechase event at the Stockholm Diamond League on Sunday. The Indian failed to improve upon his performance from the previous Diamond League appearance.

Sable, 28, running his second race of the season, clocked 8:21.88, well outside his personal best of 8:11.20, to finish fifth. Earlier in the year, he had finished 10th, clocking 8:17.18, at the Diamond League meeting in Rabat, Morocco.

Running on a wet track, Olympic and world champion Soufiane El Bakkali won the race in 8:09.84s. It was well outside the Moroccan’s season and personal best time of 7:56.68s, which he had clocked in Rabat.

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The 2019 Diamond League champion Getnet Wale was second with a time of 8:12.27 while compatriot Abrham Sime took the third spot in 8:16.82.

The 2022 Commonwealth Games silver medallist Sable has been training abroad to prepare for the World Championships in Budapest in August. He will now return focus to preparing for it by training in Switzerland.

Elsewhere, Norway’s Olympic champion Karsten Warholm won the men’s 400 metres hurdles in a race that was hindered by a protest from environmentalists.

Three protesters from A22 Network, who had interrupted the Swedish final of “Let’s Dance” on TV4 last month, knelt on the track before the finish line, stretching a banner across six lanes, forcing most of the field to run through it.

Warholm, running in lane eight, however was not affected. Yet, he admitted to being ‘pissed off’.

“It is permissible to protest, but this is not the way to do it,” Warholm told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. “It is disrespectful to those who are here to do a good job. I must honestly admit that I’m pissed off.”

On the track, he posted a time of 47.57 seconds. The 27-year-old double world champion was way off his world record of 45.94 set at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. But backt-to-back victories bodes well for his ambitions at the World Athletics Championships.

“I felt very good before the start but the conditions make it a little bit more challenging, but I felt I had to get in and got to post another good time, so I am very pleased,” Warholm said of continuous rain and chilly 15 degrees Celsius after. “I am 100% exactly where I want to be.”

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