Carlo Jonkerman, Special to ESPN 7y

Big names miss out on Diamond League finals

While 15 recently-crowned World Champions will be present for the first leg of the 2017 IAAF Diamond League finals at the Weltklasse Zurich, recently-retired Usain Bolt would have been on the list of 26 London 2017 medallists who hadn't qualified for the season-ending finals at all.

This year the IAAF introduced a new qualifying method for the Diamond League finals, to keep interest in which athletes would claim the end-of-season prizes going until the final events.

Depending on the event, there were four to six qualifying meetings throughout the season where athletes could earn Diamond League points, as not every athletic discipline takes place at each of the 12 legs of the regular season.

The top 8 (mostly track events) or top 12 (mostly field events) highest-scoring athletes would then qualify for the Diamond League finals in Zurich and Brussels - which will each host 16 events.

As such, the conclusion of the Birmingham leg this past Sunday sealed the fates of any athlete aiming to be a 2017 Diamond League finalist, and it turns out that 26 of this year's IAAF World Championship medalists have not qualified.

Of course, tailoring their seasons in an attempt to peak for those championships is the reason why most of those medallists have not qualified... their schedules meant a lack of participation in the qualifying meetings.

In fact, of the 26 London medallists who won't be seen in Zurich and Brussels, only three entered more than one of the qualifiers this season. They are Americans Jenny Simpson (1500m) and Dawn Harper-Nelson (100m hurdles), who wildly celebrated their surprise silver medals in London, while Croatian shot putter Stipe Zunic wasn't even mentioned as a medal prospect before winning bronze.

Only four London gold medallists will miss out on the Diamond League finals, having only run one qualifier each; namely American women Tori Bowie (100m), Phyllis Francis (400m), and Kori Carter (400m hurdles), as well as men's 800m world champion Pierre-Ambroise Bosse of France.

Meanwhile, three Africans will be missing from events that they medalled in at London's showpiece, having not run in any of the qualifiers. However, in the cases of South Africans Wayde van Niekerk (200m silver) and Caster Semenya (1500m bronze), those came in their alternate events, while 5000m silver medallist Almaz Ayana (Ethiopia) had not run all year until she arrived at the world championships.

A further two Africans, Isaac Makwala (Botswana) and Emmanuel Korir (Kenya) have set the world-leading times in the 200m and 800m respectively, but have not run enough qualifying races to challenge for a share of the $1.6-million end-of-season prize pot.

Full list of London 2017 medallists who have not qualified for IAAF Diamond League finals:
Gold (4): Tori Bowie (USA, 100m), Phyllis Francis (USA, 400m), Kori Carter (USA, 400m hurdles), Pierre-Ambroise Bosse (France, 800m)

Silver (9): Christian Coleman (USA, 100m), Wayde van Niekerk (South Africa, 200m), Salwa Eid Naser (Bahrain, 400m), Jenny Simpson (USA, 1500m), Almaz Ayana (Ethiopia, 5000m), Dawn Harper-Nelson (USA, 100m hurdles), Courtney Frerichs (USA, 300m steeplechase), Danil Lysenko (Russia, high jump), Li Lingwei (China, javelin throw)

Bronze (13): Usain Bolt (Jamaica, 100m), Jereem Richards (Trinidad & Tobago, 200m), Abdalelah Haroun (Qatar, 400m), Balazs Baji (Hungary, 110m hurdles), Nelson Evora (Portugal, triple jump), Stipe Zunic (Croatia, shot put), Mason Finley (USA, discus throw), Petr Frydrych (Czech Republic, javelin throw), Shaunae Miller-Uibo (Bahamas, 200m), Ajee Wilson (USA, 800m), Caster Semenya (South Africa, 1500m), Ristananna Tracey (Jamaica, 400m hurdles), Lu Huihui (China, javelin throw)

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