Ugandan long-distance runner Joshua Cheptegei will be back on the track tonight to compete in the 5,000m race at the Lausanne Diamond League in Switzerland.

The reigning Olympic champion over this distance will feature in a typically star-studded field of the likes of Ethiopians Selemon Barega and Edris Muktar.

Cheptegei's compatriot Jacob Kiplimo will sit this one out after pulling out late to deal with what his coach called a "personal issue" back home.

Tonight's contest will play out on the flood lights-lit Stade Olympique la Pontaise track under the Swiss evening sky.

Cheptegei finished second at the New York Half Marathon in March this year, behind winner and compatriot Jacob Kiplimo.

Lausanne will be the 26-year-old's second show this month in these series, having competed in the same 12-and-a-half-lap event on June 2 in the Italian city of Florence and finished fourth.

Cheptegei crossed the line in 12:53.81, his season's best, in a race that saw rival Barega finish in ninth place.

The Ugandan runner's coach, Addy Ruiter, blamed the disappointing result to Cheptegei's impulsive on-track-decision “to run majority of the distance from the back" and leaving it too late.

Ruiter now expects the Rome situational report to inform Cheptegei’s action plans and catapult him to a much better position tonight.

Cheptegei goes into this race without a victory in 2023.

He finished second at the New York Half Marathon in March and third at the World Cross Country Championships in Bathurst (Australia) in February.

He will captain Team Uganda at the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest (Hungary) this August, and a positive result in Lausanne will do well to boost his confidence and, by extension, that of his teammates.

“It is just a few weeks since he competed. The improvements you can make are very small," said Ruiter of the reigning 10,000m world champion.

"It is important that in Lausanne he does his best to have the right mindset."