Tentative schedule announced
This year, the finals of the Diamond League, an annual series of top track and field athletics tournaments, will be held outside of Europe for the first time. The meetings, which will take place in 15 host cities across 12 countries, will feature 14 of the world’s best athletes competing.
For the first time ever, the Wanda Diamond League Final will take place at the Prefontaine Classic in the United States rather than in Zurich or Brussels.
After two days of elite athletic competition on September 16 and 17, all 32 Diamond League champions will be announced. From May to September, athletes will compete at 14 series meetings, with the top competitors earning spots in the two-day Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon.
The organizers announced that more details regarding the division of the disciplines would be made public later in December and that the schedule might still be altered depending on the situation of global health in 2023.
On July 16, 2023, Poland will return to the Wanda Diamond League for the second time in the league’s history.
“This year’s Road to the Final will once again feature Silesia’s Kamila Skolimowska Memorial Meeting, which has now joined the series for the next five years after initially appearing in 2022 on a temporary basis to make up for the cancellation of both Chinese legs due to the pandemic,” reads the statement.
The Qatari city of Doha is scheduled to host the season premiere on May 5 for the 12th time since 2010, where the Road to the Final will officially begin. The series will land in Morrison Rabat, Morocco, on May 28, 2023, before flying to Europe in June and July.
The top athletes in the world will go to Stockholm on July 2, Rome on June 2, Paris on June 9, Oslo on June 15, and Lausanne on June 30.
After a three-year absence, the series will return to London on July 2 after the Herculis EBS Monaco, and the London Diamond League will take place in the London Stadium for the first time since 2019.
Two Chinese meetings will take place in Shanghai and Shenzhen before the Budapest World Athletics Championships on July 29 and August 3, respectively. On August 31, 2023, the season will resume with Weltklasse Zurich and the Allianz Memorial Van Damme event in Brussels.
The IAAF Golden League, which had been staged annually since 1998, was intended to be replaced by the Diamond League competition after its first season in 2010.
The series now includes events in China, Qatar, Morocco, and the United States in addition to the original Golden League participants (with the exception of Berlin) and other conventional European competitions.
Imane Mirga became the first person to win consecutive 5000-meter races in 2010 and 2011. At the Diamond League competition, Kenenisa Bekele set a new record for the 10k race with a time of 26:43:16. Genzebe Dibaba was also able to hold the record for the 1500-meter competition with a time of 3:50:07 in 2015.
Athletes who excelled at the Diamond League meetings included Tirunesh Dibaba in the 10K event and her compatriot Almaz Ayana in the 5000m race.
