Avinash Sable finishes fifth at the Xiamen Diamond League and qualifies for the Diamond League final. Photo: X

National 3000m steeplechase record holder Avinash Sable finished ninth in the season-ending Diamond League final with a below-par time on Friday.

Sable, who turns 30 on Friday, clocked 8 minutes, 17.09 seconds to finish ninth out of 10 men in his first DL final.

Kenya’s Amos Serem became Diamond League champion with a time of 8:06.90, while reigning Olympic and world champion Soufiane El Bakkali (8:08.60) of Morocco finished second in the season-ending final.

Mohamed Amin Jhinaoui of Tunisia finished third with a time of 8:09.68.

World champion and Paris Olympic silver medallist javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra will be in action on Saturday.

Sable finished 11th at the Paris Olympics with a time of 8:14.18.

He had finished 14th overall in the Diamond League standings with three points from two games. 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 United States – withdrew, allowing him to slip into the top 10.

Five of the 14 DL Series meetings around the world this season have featured a men’s 3,000m steeplechase event.

Defending Asian Games champion Sable finished sixth with a national record time of 8:09.91 – bettering his own previous best – at the Paris leg of the Diamond League on July 7. He finished 14th at the Silesia leg with a time of 8:29.96 on August 25.

Each Diamond League season finale champion receives a Diamond Trophy, a USD 30,000 prize and a wild card to the World Athletics Championships.

(Only the headline and image of this report may have been reworked by Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

First published: September 14, 2024 | 3:20 p.m. IST