Among those who have made the trip over from Eugene in Oregon, where the Diamond League resumed on Saturday (August 21) following the Tokyo 2020 Games, are Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah, whose 100 metres time of 10.54sec at Hayward Field was the second-fastest ever run, and United States shot putter Ryan Crouser, who threw a Diamond League record of 23.15 metres, and Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who won the Bowerman Mile in 3min 47.24sec.

Also contributing to what promises to be a special night of athletics will be Norway’s 400-mertre hurdler Karsten Warholm and Venezuela’s triple jumper Yulimar Rojas, both of whom set world records in winning their Olympic titles earlier this month, and Sweden’s 21-year-old Armand Duplantis, the Olympic pole vault gold medallist.

The setting of the Lausanne stadium and the quality and layout of its track, with its wide, generous curves, has always aided fast sprinting.

Two years ago Noah Lyles ran his fastest 200m there, 19.50sec, and back in 1994 fellow American Leroy Burrell lowered the world 100m record to 9.85.

There will inevitably be expectation of Thompson-Herah, who retained both her 100m and 200m titles in Tokyo, to move even closer to the mark of 10.49 set at the 1988 US trials in Indianapolis by the late Florence Griffith-Joyner.

Certainly the Jamaican will not lack for competitive impetus on the night given the presence of the compatriots who finished respectively second and third behind her in Tokyo and Eugene - double Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and longtime 400m runner Shericka Jackson.

Crouser, meanwhile, will be seeking to extend an unbeaten run encompassing 21 finals since he lost the 2019 world outdoor title to compatriot Joe Kovacs, and will also have the world record in his sights - the mark of 23.37 metres he himself set in winning the US Olympic trials last month.

Ingebrigtsen, who won the Olympic 1500 metres title ahead of Kenya’s world champion Timothy Cheruiyot, will run over 3,000m with a European record in his sights.

He already owns the continental marks for 1500m and 5,000m and in Lausanne his target will be Belgian Mohammed Mourhit's mark of 7min 26.62sec.

But he will have company of the highest class in the form of five medal winners from three other events in Tokyo.

They include two athletes who have both run 7:26 either indoors or out in the past 11 months - Olympic 10,000m champion Selemon Barega of Ethiopia and 10,000m bronze medallist Jacob Kiplimo, the Ugandan who won the world half marathon title last year.

The field also features the second and third finishers from the 5,000m final in Tokyo, Canada’s Moh Ahmed and Paul Chelimo of the US, and Ethiopia’s world and Olympic steeplechase silver medallist Lamecha Girma.

Like his fellow Norwegian Olympic champion, Warholm will also switch events in Switzerland as he runs the 400m flat, an event in which he won the European indoor title in Glasgow two years ago, equalling the 31-year-old record of 45.05sec set by East Germany’s Thomas Schönlebe.

The 24-year-old, who lowered his own world record of 46.70 to an astonishing 45.94 in Tokyo, set the Norwegian record of 44.87 in 2017 and Schönlebe's European outdoor record of 44.33 could be under threat.

Intriguingly, Rojas, who bettered the 1995 mark of 15.50 metres held by Ukraine’s Inessa Kravets with her last-round effort of 15.67m in Tokyo, was initially down to do the women's long jump in Lausanne but has switched to her main event.

Her competition on the night will be headed by Patricia Mamona, who took silver in Tokyo with a Portuguese record of 15.01m.

Duplantis won the Olympic title with what was, for him, a relatively mundane first-time clearance of 6.02m before going on to have three efforts, one of them tantalisingly close, at clearing 6.19m and thus adding a centimetre to the world record he set in Glasgow last year.

His rivals will include the double world champion from the United States, Sam Kendricks, who will return to action after the frustration of having to miss the Olympics due to a positive COVID-19 test.

Kendricks' compatriot Chris Nilsen, who took silver in Tokyo, and France’s former world record-holder Renaud Lavillenie are also in the field.

All three Olympic medallists in the women’s high jump will be in action as Olympic and world champion Mariya Lasitskene - an Authorised Neutral Athlete -once again takes on Australia’s Nicola McDermott and Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh.

The men’s 800 metres involves the top seven from Tokyo, led by medallists Emmanuel Korir and Ferguson Rotich of Kenya and Pole Patryk Dobek.

Jamaica’s Olympic champion Hansle Parchment runs in the 110m hurdles, while Bahamian 400m winner Steven Gardiner drops down to the 200m to face American sprinters Kenny Bednarek and Fred Kerley, the Olympic silver medallists over 200m and 100m respectively.

The women’s 400m hurdles will mark what is likely to be an emotional farewell for 31-year-old home athlete Léa Sprunger, the European champion, who will face world champion Dalilah Muhammad of the US and Olympic bronze medallist Femke Bol from the Netherlands.

A city-centre men’s high jump competition is arranged for the eve of competition featuring Italy’s joint Olympic champion Gianmarco Tamberi.

He was to have been facing the other champion, Mutaz Barshim of Qatar, but the latter has been obliged to take up an invitation to attend a celebratory function hosted by the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.

Tokyo bronze medallist Maksim Nedasekau is also in the field.