Athletics
Diamond League Final: Avinash Sable finishes 9th on his debut
Avinash Sable marked his debut at the Diamond League final with a ninth place finish in the 3000m steeplechase event.
Avinash Sable at Tokyo Olympics (Source: ESPN India)
Indian steeplechaser Avinash Sable finished ninth in the 3000m steeplechase of the season-ending Diamond League final on Friday.
Birthday boy Sable, who turned 30 on Friday, clocked 8 minutes and 17.09 seconds to finish ninth in the 10-man field in his debut DL final.
Amos Serem of Kenya emerged as the Diamond League champion with a time of 8:06.90, while reigning Olympic and world champion Soufiane El Bakkali (8:08.60) of Morocco was second in the season-ending finale.
World champion and Paris Olympics silver medallist javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra will be in action on Saturday.
National record holder in the 3000m steeplechase, Sable had finished 11th in the Paris Olympic Games with a time of 8:14.18.
Despite a poor finish, it marked a historic moment for Indian Athletics as Sable became the first-ever Indian track athlete to feature in the Diamond League final.
He had 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 10 cut-off.
Five meetings out of the 14 in the DL series across the world this season had men's 3000m steeplechase event.
Reigning Asian Games champion 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 14th at the Silesia leg with a time of 8:29.96 on August 25.
