The Peninsula
Doha, Qatar: Olympic 400m champion and former world champion Steven Gardiner will return to Qatar for the Seashore Group Doha Diamond League (DL) Meeting on May 10.
Gardiner clocked a national record of 43.48 with victory at the World Athletics Championships in Doha 2019. It was an impressive upgrade to the silver he’d won in London two years earlier and a performance that made him the sixth-fastest man in the history of the event.
In the lead up to the 2023 World Championships in Budapest, the 28-year-old - who owns the fastest indoor 300m time in history (31.56) - had been in fine form. He was unbeaten over 400m and recorded the second-fastest performance of his career one month out from the global showpiece (43.74). He cruised through the opening round but was injured in the semi-final and failed to finish.
He returned to competitive action with a 31.99 300m in Florida in March 2024 and will race in front of a home crowd at the World Athletics Relays in the Bahamas (4-5 May) ahead of the Seashore Group Doha Meeting.
“This is an exciting year for me with the prospect of my third Olympic Games,” said Gardiner, who was a 4 x 400m Olympic relay bronze medallist in Rio 2016 and is also the Bahamian record holder for the 200m and 4 x 400m mixed relay.
“I was heartbroken to suffer an injury in Budapest last summer which ended my season, but I want to run fast when it matters and when you train this hard, working towards those big moments, injuries happen. I’m working on my fitness and being healthy and my training is coming along. I’m looking forward to competing in the 400m in Doha. The warm conditions will suit me, so it’s a perfect opportunity to build my confidence with a strong early season performance.”
The Seashore Group Doha Meeting is the third meeting of the 2024 Wanda Diamond League.
The series comprises 15 meetings in total across four different continents and started with Xiamen (China) on 20 April. It concludes with a single final across two days in Brussels (13-14 September). Each of the 14 series meetings will be broadcast globally in a live two-hour programme.