2024 Season Review: World records galore

This year's Meeting de Paris was always going to be a special one. Falling just 19 days before the lavish opening ceremony on the River Seine, the eighth leg of the 2024 season was the ultimate Olympic dress rehearsal. And it didn't disappoint. 

In 2023, Paris had become the first meeting in Diamond League history to produce two world records on a single night. Thirteen months on, it became the first to repeat the feat, as Faith Kipyegon and Yaroslava Mahuchikh lit up the City of Lights.

Kipyegon, whose 5000m world record in the Stade Charléty was one of three she had broken in 2023, picked up exactly where she had left off with another historic performance in the women's 1500m. Her 3:49.04 shaved 0.07 seconds off her own previous mark, taking her tally of Diamond League world records to a staggering four. 

While world records have almost become run of the mill for the Kenyan, however, Mahuchikh's triumph in the women's high jump came as more of a surprise. The Ukrainian star cleared 2.10m at her first attempt, finally breaking a world record which had stood for 27 years since Stefka Kostadinova's 2.09m in 1987.

History was also rewritten in the men's 800m, where Algeria's Djamel Sedjati posted a world lead of 1:41.56. While that was still a little off David Rudisha's elusive world record, this still had a claim to be one the greatest two-lap races of all time. In a dramatic photo finish, Emmanuel Wanyoni posted a PB of 1:41.58 and Gabriel Tual clocked a French record of 1:41.61, making this the first time that three men had gone under 1:42 in the same race, and the first time that six had gone under 1:43. 

If Paris was the first big Olympic dress rehearsal, the next leg of the season in Monaco also delivered a cluster of showdowns which would set the tone for the biggest event of the summer. 

Ahead of the action in the Stade Louis II, all eyes were on the men's 400m hurdles and a rare meeting between the three fastest men of all time in Rai Benjamin, Karsten Warholm and Alison Dos Santos. It was Benjamin who triumphed in that clash, overcoming jet lag to claim a rare Diamond League win and throw down the gauntlet ahead of his triumph in Paris a few weeks later.

He wasn't the only one to make an impression in Monaco. Algeria's Sedjati continued his blistering form with a Diamond League record of 1:41.46 in the men's 800m, while Jakob Ingebrigtsen delivered another statement victory with a European record of 3:26.73 in the men's 1500m. In the women's 100m, meanwhile, a certain Julien Alfred picked up her first ever Diamond League win with a sharp-looking 10.85.

The most impressive performance of the night, however, came somewhat unexpectedly in the women's 2000m, where Australia's Jessica Hull clocked 5:19.70 to go faster than any other woman in history. It was the third time a world record had been broken at the Monaco Diamond League and the fourth to have been broken in the 2024 season. 

After the exhilaration of Paris and Monaco, the ninth leg of the Diamond League season offered one last chance for the world's best to get in winning shape before the Olympics. And where better to do so than in the stadium which had once hosted Usain Bolt, Mo Farah et al for London 2012?

The grand surroundings certainly seemed to suit Noah Lyles, who made his first Diamond League appearance of the season in London and proved his gold-medal winning form with a personal best of 9.81 in the men's 100m.

There was also plenty for the home crowd to cheer, as Britain's Matthew Hudson-Smith clocked a European record of 43.74 in the men's 400m and compatriot Keely Hodgkinson raced to a world lead and British record of 1:54.61 in the women's 800m. After her US rival Athing Mu had failed to make it through the US trials, this was proof if any was needed that the reigning Diamond League champion was also favourite for gold in Paris. 

Femke Bol also showed ominous form ahead of her much-anticipated Olympic showdown with Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, the flying Dutchwoman breaking the Diamond League record for the second year in a row in London with 51.30. 

Bol wasn't the only woman to turn heads over one lap, however, as 23-year-old Nickisha Pryce set a new Jamaican and Diamond League record of 48.57 in the 400m flat, claiming her first ever Diamond League win at the best possible moment of the season.