Olympic champion and world record holder Karsten Warholm retired injured in his season debut over 400 meters hurdles.
The 26-year-old Norwegian stopped the race at the Diamond League meeting in Rabat. The track and field athlete apparently sustained an injury to his right thigh, which he immediately cooled with an ice pack.
Warholm set a world record of 45.94 seconds at the Tokyo Olympics. It is now unclear how things will continue for the top star this year with the World Championships in July in Eugene/USA and the European Championships in August in Munich. The American Khallifah Rosser won the race in Morocco in 48.25 seconds.
Olympic 100m champion Elaine Thompson-Herah sprinted ahead of everyone in Rabat as well. In 10.83 seconds, the 29-year-old Jamaican finished first for the seventh time in the current outdoor season. Marie-Josée Ta Lou of Ivory Coast was second in 11.04 seconds. The German champion Alexandra Burghardt decided not to start due to a hardened muscle.
Kristjan Ceh won the discus throw. The 23-year-old Slovenian made an outstanding performance at the Stade Moulay Abdallah with 69.68 meters and relegated Olympic champion Daniel Stahl from Sweden (67.16) to second place.
In front of his home crowd, Moroccan Soufine El Bakkali set a world best time of the year over 3000 meters in the last race in 7:58.28 minutes. Over the 800 meters, which is not one of the Diamond League disciplines, Majtie Kolberg (Ahrweiler) finished eighth in 2:01.63 minutes.