It won't be at the Stade de France, which is preparing to host athletics, rugby 7s and the Closing Ceremony of the Games, but at the Charléty, a 20,000-seat stadium inaugurated in 1939 in the south of the French capital, where Usain Bolt has competed in the Diamond. 

Pole vaulting icon Armand 'Mondo' Duplantis will lead a host of world stars getting a taste of elite competition. He is one of five Olympic champions, six world champions and 12 European champions who will compete in the Meeting de Paris. 

"I have been jumping for a long time. I am concentrating on myself and trying to get the best out of me," said Duplantis, who has already won a second World Indoor title and a third European gold this year, improved his own world record to 6.24m and has already ttempted 6.25m. 

The reigning Olympic champion and the best pole vaulter of all time, who won't have Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie as a rival at the Olympic Games, will make his last appearance before the Olympic qualifying round on 3 August at 10.10am on Sunday. 

"I want to make sure that everything is where it should be, try to gather as much information as possible, because I want everything to be perfect. I hope to jump high and show myself that I'm going to the Olympics in world record form. I'll give 110 per cent as always," said the Lousiana-born Swede. 

"We have a really great field. It's basically the Olympic final," he added, and rightly so, as the list of big names includes Ernest John Obiena of the Philippines (5.97 this year and 6.00 personal record), Chris Nielsen of the USA (5.00 and 6. 05), Sam Kendricks (6.06 and 5.05) and KC Lightfoot (5.92 and 6.07), Greece's Emmanouil Karalis (5.93 this year) and former world record holder Lavillenie (5.72 in 2024 and 6.16 as a personal best). 

The iconic 'Mondo' Duplantis has been working on his way to the jump. "The more speed I can control and maintain, the more I can use stiffer poles," he said. "The stiffer the poles the more energy I can bring to the start, then it's like a catapult, the more it can just throw me up there in the air," he concluded. 

Faith Kipyegon, a two-time Olympic champion, four-time world champion and world record holder in the mile, 3,000 and 5,000 metres, will return to the stadium where she broke the current world record last year. However, the Kenyan will be competing in the 1,500 metres. 

Other recent Olympic champions in the French capital include Germany's Malaika Mihambo (long jump)and Poland's Wojciech Nowicki (hammer), who both won European titles in Rome in June, and American Valarie Allman (discus). 

Nine other newly crowned European champions will be competing with an eye on the Olympic Games: Alice Finot (steeplechase), Gabriel Tual (800m), Yaroslava Mahuchikh (high jump), Timothé Mumenthaler (200m), Natalia Kaczmarek (400m), Ciara Mageean (1500m), Sandra Elkasevic, neé Perkovic (discus), Lorenzo Ndele Simonelli (110m hurdles) and Jakub Vadlejch (javelin). 

France's Tual will be up against Kenya's world 800m silver medallist Emmanuel Wanyonyi, who ran a world-leading and personal best of 1:41.70 at the Kenyan trials last month, third best ever behind compatriot David Lekuta Rudisha's world record of 1:40.91 and the astonishing Kenyan-born Denmark's Wilson Kipketer (1:41.11). "I feel pressure going into the Paris Olympics. I need to prepare well and that's why I will just try to run my best," said Wanyonyi.