It will be quite a night in Zurich on Thursday for two of Switzerland’s top runners who experienced both ends of the emotional scale during the European Athletics Championships.
Kariem Hussein will be looking to stamp his mark all over the 400m hurdles again while Mujinga Kambundji will probably be grateful just to be back competing at the Letzigrund Stadium.
It is less than two weeks since Hussein became one of the stars of the championships with his brilliant run to win gold at the 400m hurdles. It was some race as he held on to triumph in 48.96 as Rasmus Magi, of Estonia, and Russia’s Denis Kudryavstev closed in on him.
But Hussein had enough to hold on to take gold on a night he will never forget.
The noise around the arena was incredible, just as it will be on Thursday evening for the penultimate IAAF Diamond League meeting of the season.
The Weltklasse will be a big test for Hussein, who will face American Michael Tinsley, who leads the Diamond Race, world champion Jehue Gordon, from Trinidad & Tobago, and the Dominican Republic’s legendary double Olympic champion Felix Sanchez.
Hussein has put himself in this world-class company with his brilliant exploits at the championships and the crowd will be ready to lift him again. When his name is announced before the race, it will probably be the biggest reception of the whole event.
As for Kambundji, her European Athletics Championships ended with the worst possible despair as she dropped the baton as she left the blocks in the final of the 4x100m relay.
It was the last race of the whole championships and she was left in tears, her hands across her face. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to turn.
But now she has the chance to put all that right.
Kambundji will race in both the 4x100m relay - ironically the last event of the meeting - and the individual 100m where she will face Dafne Schippers, of the Netherlands, the Dutch golden girl who won the individual sprint titles at the European Athletics Championships.
Ironically, the Netherlands did not even get past the opening changeover in the relay final when Madiea Ghafoor, on the first leg, and Schippers, on the second, failed to execute the baton change.
They, too, will have a team in that race, and it should be quite a finale.