Genzebe Dibaba will target the world 5,000m record in Eugene tomorrow ©Getty Images

Genzebe Dibaba will attempt to break the women's world 5,000 metre record tomorrow at Hayward Field in Eugene on the opening night of the third International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Diamond League meeting of the season.

The Ethiopian will take a stab at eclipsing the 2008 mark of 14min 11.15sec set in Oslo by her elder sister Tirunesh on a Friday night session that has been named Joan Benoit Samuelson Night in honour of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games marathon champion.

At Eugene in 2015, Dibaba ran by herself to set a United States all-comers’ record of 14:19.76. 

By the end of that summer, she had broken the 22-year-old world 1,500m record mark by running 3:50.07.

Dibaba, who set an outright world 2,000m record in an indoor race in February, will renew her 10-year rivalry with Kenya’s Mercy Cherono, the 2013 world 5,000m silver medallist, in Eugene.

Neither the women’s 5,000m or the women’s 3,000m steeplechase which precedes it are official Diamond League event this year, but the latter should also provide top class action as it features Bahrain’s adopted Kenyan Ruth Jebet, the Olympic champion and world record holder, and US Rio 2016 bronze medallist Emma Coburn.

The session will also feature six other elite and national women’s races, with admission being free.

Saturday’s main programme includes a Bowerman Mile which includes home Olympic 1,500m champion Matt Centrowitz and Kenya’s three-time world 1,500m champion Asbel Kiprop.

The men’s 5,000m includes Britain’s double world and Olympic champion Mo Farah, Rio 2016 silver medallist Paul Chelimo of the US and Kenya’s Geoffrey Kamworor, winner of the last two IAAF Half Marathon and World Cross-country titles.

Kenya's Geoffrey Kamworor, pictured retaining his IAAF World Half Marathon title in Cardiff last year in a race where Mo Farah took bronze, faces the Briton again in the 5,000m ©Getty Images
Kenya's Geoffrey Kamworor, pictured retaining his IAAF World Half Marathon title in Cardiff last year in a race where Mo Farah took bronze, faces the Briton again in the 5,000m ©Getty Images

It is not just the distance events that will catch the eye at the venue as the men’s 100m sees Canada’s 22-year-old rising force Andre De Grasse, the Olympic 200m silver medallist and 100m bronze medallist, faces 35-year-old Rio 2016 silver medallist Justin Gatlin, who is seeking a sixth win at this meeting on home soil.

But it could be the women’s sprinting that provides the high point of the meeting given the fact that the 200m will feature the respective gold, silver and bronze medallists from Rio 2016 – Elaine Thompson of Jamaica, 2015 world champion Dafne Schippers of The Netherlands and the US' Tori Bowie.

The entry list also includes three-time world champion and London 2012 gold medallist Allyson Felix of the US.

Jamaica’s Olympic 110m hurdles champion Omar McLeod is favourite to retain his Eugene title in a race that will lack Russia’s world champion Sergey Shubenkov, who returned to international competition at the last Diamond League meeting in Shanghai after being given permission to compete as a neutral while the country are banned for doping infractions. 

He will not be present in Eugene due to an "unexpected delay" in getting his visa.

In the men’s pole vault, 17-year-old Swedish phenomenon Armand Duplantis, who leads this year’s world lists with the extraordinary effort of 5.90m he cleared on April 1, will face the three Rio Olympic medallists in Brazil’s Thiago Braz, France’s world record holder Renaud Lavillenie and home vaulter Sam Kendricks.