Following the relaxation of COVID-19 restrictions, two and a half thousand spectators will be able to attend each session of this year’s meeting.

Stahl threw a 2021 world lead of 69.71 metres in Helsingborg last month, but his compatriot Simon Pettersson, also in the field, had beaten him recently in Vaxjo with a personal best of 69.48m.

As it turned out it was Lithuania’s 2017 world champion Andrius Gudzius who proved the most challenging opponent as he took a third-round lead with 66.88m, but Stahl responded in the next round with what proved to be a winning effort of 68.11m.

Tomorrow night two giants of the hammer in recent years, Anita Wlodarczyk and Pawel Fajdek, will be forming large parts of the main attraction.

If Wlodarczyk, 35, is to earn a third Olympic title in Tokyo she needs to re-establish her best form in what doubles as a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold Meeting having lost in her last three outings.

Two of those defeats have been inflicted by the fellow Pole who will also be in Turku, Malwina Kapron.

Meanwhile Poland’s 31-year-old Fajdek – the four-time world champion who will be hoping for his first Olympic success of any kind this summer – is in top form, having set a world-leading mark for the year of 82.98 metres at the European Athletics Team Championships in Chorzow last weekend.

In Turku he faces the three men he shared the podium with at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha - Quentin Bigot of France and joint bronze medallists Wojciech Nowicki of Poland and Bence Halasz of Hungary.

World javelin champion Anderson Peters of Grenada will also be in action in a field including the London 2012 Olympic champion Keshorn Walcott of Trinidad and Tobago.

The women’s javelin was part of tonight’s programme, and Germany’s European champion Christin Hussong, in top form having set a personal best of 69.19m at the European Team Championships, won with a meeting record of 66.63m.

The concluding event of the men's 400m hurdles was won by Ireland's Thomas Barr in 48.39sec, who in so doing got the Olympic qualifying time and booked his place for Tokyo 2020.

Estonia's Rasmus Magi was second in a season's best of 48.58.

Bahrain’s 21-year-old Winfred Yavi, who recently set a 3,000m steeplechase personal best of 9min 02.64sec in finishing third at last month’s Wanda Diamond League meeting in Doha, was an expectedly easy winner in 9:17.55, a stadium record.

Tiago Pereira of Portugal won the men’s triple jump with 16.91m.

Ukraine’s high jumper Yuliya Levchenko, the 2017 world silver medallist, has been well below her best of 2.02m in her three outdoor competitions this year and needs an upturn tomorrow.

On the track, Kenya’s Ferguson Rotich headlines the men’s 800m, with the world bronze medallist taking on compatriot Cornelius Tuwei and Britain’s Jamie Webb.