2024 Season Review: Records and rising stars

After 2023 had delivered the greatest season in Wanda Diamond League histoy, expectations were unusually high heading into the 15th anniversary year of athletics' premier one-day series.

Any fears that 2024 might not live up to the hype were quickly dispelled at the season opener in Xiamen, as Mondo Duplantis delivered a world record with just his fourth jump of the season.

Having cleared 6.23m in the 2023 Wanda Diamond League Final just seven months earlier, Duplantis sailed over 6.24m at the Egret Stadium to become the first athlete to break the world record in the same discipline at two successive Diamond League meetings. 

It was the eighth time Duplantis had broken the world record in his extraordinary young career, and the first time any athlete had done so at a Diamond League season opener. Predictably, though, it was only the start for the superstar Swede, who went on to break the record on two more occasions over the course of the 2024 season.

His was not the only standout performance in Xiamen, however, as former champions and rising stars alike also got their season off to an explosive start. 

Gudaf Tsegay became the third-fastest woman in history over 1500m with an impressive 3:50.30, while Australian teenager Torrie Lewis stunned world champion Sha'Carri Richardson with her first ever Diamond League win in the women's 200m. 

Just a week after Xiamen, the world's best athletes were still in China as the Diamond League returned to the Yangtze River Delta for the first time since 2019. 

For ten years, the Shanghai Diamond League had been a regular fixture on the series calendar. In 2024, the meeting returned to its traditional spot as the second leg on the Road to the Final, this time in neighbouring Suzhou. 

Suzhou's Diamond League debut did not disappoint, as the city delivered several performances which would set the tone for the rest of the 2024 season.

New Zealand's Hamish Kerr cleared 2.31m to claim the first of his three Diamond League wins in 2024, in what would prove to be his first step towards Olympic glory in Paris. 

Japan's Haruka Kitaguchi began her Diamond League title defence with a winning throw of 62.97m in the final round of the javelin - not the first time that the Japanese would snatch victory from the jaws of defeat in 2024.

There were also further upsets in the sprints as Akani Simbine stunned both Christian Coleman and Fred Kerley in the men's 100m, and Sha'Carri Richardson slumped to a second successive defeat against Britain's Daryll Neita. 

After an explosive start to the season in China, the Road to the Final continued on to Doha in early May, where several former champions staked an early claim to regain their Diamond League crown in 2024.

Kenny Bednarek, who won the Diamond Trophy in the men's 200m in 2021, notched up his first Diamond League win in two years with a stunning world lead of 19.67.

It was a performance which would set the tone for a season in which Bednarek emphatically returned to the top of the 200m charts, claiming the silver medal behind Letsile Tebogo at the Olympics and later beating Tebogo to regain the Diamond Trophy.

The same went for 2022 Diamond League champion Alison Dos Santos, who raced to a world lead and meeting record of 46.86 in the men's 400m hurdles. The Brazilian would also go on to regain his title, though not before a thrilling, season-long battle with old rivals Karsten Warholm and Rai Benjamin. 

Fellow 2022 Diamond Trophy winner Beatrice Chebet also posted a world lead and meeting record in the women's 5000m, clocking 14:26.98 to kickstart a campaign in which she too would regain the title she had surrendered in 2023. 

Suzhou wasn't the only new city on the circuit in 2024, as the Meeting International Mohammed VI also moved from its traditional home in Rabat to a temporary location in Marrakech. 

It turned out to be the perfect spot for newcomers on the track, as several rising stars delivered breakthrough Diamond League performances in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. 

Lithuania's Mykolas Alekna, who had stunned the world with his discus world record in Oklahoma just weeks earlier, claimed his first ever Diamond League win with an impressive 70.70m. 

With Ukrainian star Yaroslava Mahuchikh not starting her season until later in the summer, Serbian teenager Angelina Topic was at liberty to make her mark in the women's high jump.

Having already picked up a maiden win in Doha, Topic then sailed to a national record of 1.98m to make it back-to-back victories in Marrakech. 

Perhaps the most impressive first-time winner was South Africa's Prudence Sekgodiso, who stormed to a world lead and personal best of 1:57.26 to win the women's 800m. 

The night ended with an almost obligatory victory for home hero Soufiane El Bakkali, who had to dig deep to hold off Ethiopia's Getnet Wale in the men's 3000m steeplechase.