The track and field season is beginning to heat up, and the sprints will be sizzling on Saturday and Sunday, live on NBC Sports and Peacock.
First up is the Los Angeles Grand Prix, live on Saturday from 4:30-6 p.m. ET on NBC, NBCSports.com/live, the NBC Sports app and Peacock.
The most stacked race there is the 100m hurdles, pitting the two fastest women in history (Nigerian Tobi Amusan and American Keni Harrison) plus Olympic gold medalist Jasmine Camacho-Quinn of Puerto Rico. The winner likely becomes the favorite for August’s world championships in Budapest.
LA boasts more world record holders in the pole vault (Mondo Duplantis of Sweden) and shot put (American Ryan Crouser), plus a women’s 100m that includes Sha’Carri Richardson, the world’s fastest woman this year, and most of the other top contenders for July’s USA Track and Field Outdoor Championships.
Then on Sunday, the Diamond League resumes in Rabat, Morocco, live from 2-4 p.m. ET on CNBC, NBCSports.com/live, the NBC Sports app and Peacock.
The marquee event there is the men’s 100m including Italian Marcell Jacobs, the Olympic champion, and American Fred Kerley, the world champion. It’s their first head-to-head since the Tokyo Olympic final, where Jacobs won in 9.80 seconds, relegating Kerley to silver in 9.84. Kerley lowered his best to 9.76 last year and won the world title while Jacobs was out with leg injuries.
This will be the first time that the reigning Olympic gold medalist and reigning world champion in the men’s 100m face off in a 100m since the 2012 Olympic final. Granted, a head-to-head was impossible for much of the last decade because Usain Bolt held both titles concurrently for five years.
Here are the start lists: Los Angeles | Rabat. Here’s the schedule of events (all times Eastern):
Los Angeles (Saturday)
3:25 p.m. — Women’s Shot Put
4:02 — Women’s 100m (Round 1)
4:10 — Women’s/Men’s Javelin
4:20 — Men’s Pole Vault
4:22 — Men’s Mile
4:32 — Men’s 400m Hurdles
4:40 — Women’s 200m
4:48 — Men’s 200m
4:55 — Women’s 100m Hurdles
5 — Men’s Shot Put
5:03 — Men’s 400m
5:11 — Women’s 1500m
5:20 — Women’s 800m
5:29 — Men’s 800m
5:37 — Women’s 400m
5:45 — Women’s 100m
5:53 — Men’s 100m
Rabat (Sunday)
1:37 p.m. — Women’s Shot Put
2:04 — Women’s 400m Hurdles
2:05 — Women’s High Jump
2:15 — Men’s 800m
2:27 — Men’s Discus
2:29 — Men’s 110m Hurdles
2:38 — Women’s 1500m
2:40 — Women’s Triple Jump
2:52 — Men’s 400m
3:02 — Women’s 200m
3:11 — Men’s 1500m
3:25 — Men’s 100m
3:34 — Women’s 800m
3:46 — Men’s 3000m Steeplechase
Here are five events to watch:
Men’s Pole Vault — Saturday, 4:20 p.m. ET
A meeting of the world’s top three over the last several years: world record holder Mondo Duplantis of Sweden, American Chris Nilsen, who took silver to Duplantis at the last Olympics and worlds, and American Sam Kendricks, world champion in 2017 and 2019. Kendricks missed the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for COVID-19, then missed almost all of last season due to a knee injury. So this is the first time that all three are competing against each other outdoors since Nilsen joined the 6-meter club.
Women’s 100m Hurdles — Saturday, 4:55 p.m. ET
Camacho-Quinn enters on best form. Last Sunday, she clocked 12.17 seconds with a 3.5 meter/second tailwind (legal limit is 2.0), the third-fastest all-conditions time in history behind Amusan’s semifinal and final runs at last July’s worlds. Amusan’s best time this year is 12.59. Harrison’s is 12.44. The fastest wind-legal time this year is 12.36 from the University of Kentucky’s Masai Russell, who is not in this field.
Women’s 100m — Saturday, 5:45 p.m. ET
Richardson ran 10.76 in the Diamond League opener on May 5 in Doha, beating world silver medalist Shericka Jackson of Jamaica with the the best time in the world this year. Richardson is arguably the early favorite for the world title, but she has run fast early in the season before and yet to compete at an Olympics or worlds, plus reigning world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has yet to race this season. To make worlds, Richardson must be top three at USATF Outdoors in July, and many of her domestic rivals will be in Saturday’s race. That includes the last four women to win the national title: Aleia Hobbs, Teahna Daniels, Javianne Oliver and Melissa Jefferson.
Men’s 1500m — Sunday, 3:11 p.m. ET
The first head-to-head between Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen of Norway and Yared Nuguse, who in the winter ran the second-fastest indoor mile in history and broke the American indoor 3000m record. There are other standouts in this field — Kenyan Abel Kipsang, Australian Ollie Hoare, Spaniard Mario Garcia Romo — making this the 23-year-old Nuguse’s first outdoor measuring stick race against international competition.
Men’s 100m — Sunday, 3:25 p.m. ET
Jacobs and Kerley did plenty of chirping off the track. Now they meet on it. Recent form favors Kerley, who ran 9.88 and 9.91 in Japan last Sunday. Jacobs hasn’t raced outdoors yet this year and had a best 2022 time of 9.95 in an injury-riddled campaign. It wouldn’t be a surprise if neither man wins in Rabat, given the field also includes world bronze medalist Trayvon Bromell and Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala, fastest in the world this year at 9.84.
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The 2023-24 Alpine skiing World Cup will have no parallel races and will debut a new team Alpine combined event.
Organizers also confirmed other previously proposed changes for next season, including having no women’s races in Lake Louise, Canada, and spreading the season-ending World Cup Finals out over two weekends.
The season begins as usual with women’s and men’s giant slaloms in Soelden, Austria, in late October.
For the first time since at least 2009-10, there are no parallel races on the schedule. Last season, the one men’s and women’s parallel stop was canceled due to weather. Individual and team parallel events were held at the biennial world championships last February with some stars skipping them.
The IOC said last spring that the team parallel event that was on the Olympic program in 2018 and 2022 has been dropped for 2026.
At the annual men’s January World Cup stop in Kitzbuehel, Austria, an Alpine combined team event has been added.
A team combined event, where a nation uses a different skier for the speed run and slalom run, had been proposed to debut.
The individual combined, which has been an individual event on the Olympic program since 1988, will go a fourth consecutive season without being scheduled on the World Cup. The IOC said last June that the combined was being provisionally included on the 2026 Olympic program, subject to further review. The individual combined has remained on the world championships program.
Lake Louise has traditionally hosted men’s and women’s speed races in late November and early December. But this year, the women’s races are replaced for a different stop in Canada — two giant slaloms in Mont Tremblant in Quebec. It will be the first time since 1993-94 that the women’s World Cup will not have races in Lake Louise, save the pandemic-affected 2020-21 season.
In 2018, Lake Louise announced that its downhill run would be renamed “Lake Lindsey Way” after Lindsey Vonn, who earned 18 of her 82 World Cup wins at Lake Louise in 44 career starts there.
Vonn was so successful there that, in the middle of her career, the venue started unofficially being called Lake Lindsey.
Mikaela Shiffrin earned her first World Cup downhill and super-G victories at Lake Louise.
The season-ending World Cup Finals in March in Saalbach, Austria, will switch from a one-week event to spread out over two weekends. A proposal published earlier in May outlined technical races of slalom and giant slalom on the first weekend and speed races of downhill and super-G on the second weekend.
With no world championships in even years, the World Cup Finals will be the most prestigious competition of next season.
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Rev your engines 🏁
Set up your phones 🗓️
Buy tickets 🎟️
Start planning ✈️🚗🚝
Sharpen your ski edges 🎿
Get ready to cheer 📣
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— FIS Alpine (@fisalpine) May 25, 2023
At the French Open, Iga Świątek of Poland eyes a third title at Roland Garros and a fourth Grand Slam singles crown overall.
Main draw play starts Sunday, live on Peacock.
Świątek, the No. 1 seed from Poland, can join Serena Williams and Justine Henin as the lone women to win three or more French Opens since 2000.
Turning 22 during the tournament, she can become the youngest woman to win three French Opens since Monica Seles in 1992 and the youngest woman to win four Slams overall since Williams in 2002.
FRENCH OPEN: Broadcast Schedule | Men’s Draw
But Świątek is not as dominant as in 2022, when she went 16-0 in the spring clay season during an overall 37-match win streak.
She retired from her most recent match with a right thigh injury last week and said it wasn’t serious. Before that, she lost the final of another clay-court tournament to Australian Open champion Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus.
Sabalenka, the No. 2 seed, and Elena Rybakina of Kazakhstan, the No. 4 seed and Wimbledon champion, are the top challengers in Paris.
No. 3 Jessica Pegula and No. 6 Coco Gauff, runner-up to Świątek last year, are the best hopes to become the first American to win a Grand Slam singles title since Sofia Kenin at the 2020 Australian Open. The 11-major drought is the longest for U.S. women since Seles won the 1996 Australian Open.
MORE: All you need to know for 2023 French Open
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2023 French Open Women’s Singles Draw
