Jacobs and Warholm denied Diamond League finals wilds cards

Olympic champions Marcell Jacobs and Karsten Warholm have had the door closed on their hopes of a wild card entry for next month’s Diamond League finals in Zurich.

Jacobs, the 27-year-old Italian who won the 100m in Tokyo, has been kept out of the Diamond League this season by illness and injury but said after winning the European title last week that he wanted a chance to have a go at the best American sprinters.

His hopes of beating them and winning the world title disappeared when he withdrew before the semi-finals of last month’s world championships in Oregon.

Zurich’s co-meeting director Andreas Hediger told AFP there was no way round the rules to allow either Jacobs or Norwegian 400m hurdles world record holder Karsten Warholm to compete in the climax to the season on September 7/8.

Hediger added Jacobs’s entourage had been told this.

“The Diamond League qualification rules state that there is only one qualification for the finals via collecting points at the 13 series meetings,” he said in an email.

“The best 6-10 athletes (depending on the discipline) according to the collected points then qualify for the final.

“There is no other way, no one can be invited who has not qualified.”

“One can disagree in good faith about the sense or nonsense of this rule and it is also regularly discussed within the Diamond League,” Hediger said.

“Currently, the majority opinion is that an athlete who has not earned any points during the season in the WDL should not take the ‘cherry off the cake’ from the other athletes at the finals, regardless of why no points were or could be earned.”

Warholm’s preparations for the world championships were also blighted by injury that restricted the Norwegian to the world championships — he finished seventh — and the European championships, where he won title.

Winners of each Diamond League discipline receive a trophy and $30,000.