Sable disappoints in Diamond League 3000m steeplechase

India's Avinash Sable finished ninth in the men's 3000 metres Steeplechase in the Wanda Diamond League Finals, at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels, on Friday.

The National record holder, who turned 30 on Friday, clocked 8 minutes, 17.09 seconds in the 10-man field.

Kenya's Amos Serem won the race in 8:06.90 seconds, while Moroccos's Soufiane El Bakkali (8:08.60s) and Kenya's Amin Jhinaoui Mohammed (8:09.68s) were second and third respectively.

Sable, who clocked 8:14.18 seconds in the Paris Olympics final while finishing 11th, started slowly and was behind the rest of the field right through the race while Serem broke away on the last 400 metres to stun Olympic champion Soufiane and make up for his disaster in the Games, where he messed up at the water jump in the heats.

Sable made it to the finals after higher-ranked Ethopia’s Lamecha Girma, New Zealand’s Geordie Beamish, Japan’s Ryuji Mura and Hillar Bor of the United States pulled out.

Featuring the best of world athletics, the event is spread over two days for the first time and the field features top athletes from all continents vying for honours in 32 disciplines.

On Saturday, the second day of competition, javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra, who added a silver to his Olympics medal tally in Paris following the historic gold in the Tokyo Games, will be in action.

Chopra made the DL final cut after finishing fourth in the overall standings with 14 points from two second-place finishes in the one-day meets in Doha and Lausanne.

He skipped the last series meet in Zurich last week.