Thomas Barr comes up just short of season best as Diamond League opens in Doha

It’s Diamond League season already and Thomas Barr was back on familiar ground in Doha at the first meeting of the summer, lining up in a typically competitive 400m hurdles.

Barr, drawn in the outside lane, finished seventh in 49.88 seconds, just off his season best of 49.79 run last weekend. He finished third in the same meeting last year.

Victory went to the American Rai Benjamin in 47.48 seconds, good enough to hold off his fellow American CJ Allen, who clocked a lifetime best of 47.93 in second.

Jasmine Camacho-Quinn from Puerto Rico, the reigning Olympic champion in 100m hurdles, opened her season in familiar style, winning with 12.48 seconds.

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Sarah Lavin, in her first outdoor race after finishing sixth at the European Indoor Championships over 60m hurdles, and also in the outside lane, was well off that pace at this time of year, finishing eighth in 13.08 seconds, well shy of her best of 12.79.

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Mark English timed his finishing run a little too late in the 800m, finishing as fast as anyone in the 10-man field, ending up seventh in a season-best of 1:48.56. After passing halfway in a slow 53.7 seconds, Slimane Moula from Algeria took the win in 1:46.06.

There’s still plenty of time for catch-up, though, the World Championships in Budapest still more than three months away.