Recently crowned Olympic champions Malaika Mihambo and Mariya Lasitskene will be two of the headline acts at this year’s ISTAF in Berlin, a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver meeting, on 12 September.
Both Mihambo and Lasitskene are no strangers to success at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin either, the long-time venue for the prestigious meeting which celebrates its 100th birthday this year.
Mihambo won her first major senior title at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin, her first of three successive major outdoor titles in the long jump. Lasitskene also won European gold in Berlin three years ago to improve on her silver medal from the 2014 European Championships in Zurich.
The duo duly completed the set of major titles in Tokyo and they will face some of their fellow Olympic medallists at the ISTAF. Mihambo will face Olympic bronze medallist and world leader Ese Brume from Nigeria along with Ukraine’s Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk who pipped Mihambo to the European indoor long jump title in Torun and handed Mihambo her only defeat of the season last summer at this meeting.
In the high jump, Lasitskene faces the rapidly improving Olympic silver medallist Nicola McDermott from Australia and Ukraine’s European indoor silver medallist Iryna Herashchenko along with European bronze medallist and home favourite Marie Laurence Jungfleisch.
Another Olympic rematch is confirmed for the women’s discus in which Germany’s silver medallist Kristin Pudenz will be looking to turn the tables on Valarie Allman who won gold for the United States in Tokyo.
German favourites Konstanze Klosterhalfen (1500m), Gesa-Felicitas Krause (3000m steeplechase) and Johannes Vetter (javelin) are also confirmed for the centenary edition of the ISTAF which will take place with up to 25,000 fans in the stadium.
"The ISTAF fans in the Berlin Olympic Stadium can look forward to thrilling competitions and world class athletics. It's great that such outstanding international stars want to come to the ISTAF anniversary," said meeting director Martin Seeber.