Eugene: Five things to look out for

US pole vaulter Katie Moon filled a gap in her trophy cabinet when she claimed her first ever Diamond League title in Eugene last year. Already an Olympic and two-time world champion, Moon had suffered a string of disapppointments in Diamond League finals until she finally broke her curse in 2023, jumping a meeting record of 4.86m at Hayward Field to finally get her hands on the Diamond Trophy. After she was forced to pull out of Doha with an injury earlier this month, Eugene will be her first appearance as reigning champion, and she will be looking to start her title defence with another statement performance. 

A few years ago, Sifan Hassan was a seemingly unstoppable force on the Diamond League circuit. Between 2017 and 2022, the verstaile Dutch distance star claimed no fewer than 12 Diamond League victories across five different disciplines, with the high point coming in 2019 when she broke the mile world record in Monaco and went on to win the Diamond Trophy in the 5000m. Hassan has been quieter in recent years, making just one appearance in each of the last two seasons. Yet she is back in action in the women's 5000m in Eugene, and will be hoping to return to pick up her first Diamond League win since 2022. She has good memories of the Prefontaine Classic, having set a 3000m European and Diamond League record at the meeting when it was held in Stanford in 2019. 

At last year's final in Eugene, the women's 800m was one of the standout events as home heroine Athing Mu set a new US record of 1:54.97. Mu, though, had only qualified for the race on a national card, meaning she did not win the Diamond Trophy. Instead, Britain's Keely Hodgkinson was crowned Diamond League champion for her second-place finish, taking her second career title and regaining the throne from Kenyan rival Mary Moraa. Hodgkinson and Moraa meet again in a star-studded 800m field on Saturday, in what promises to be another memorable race. 

One of the surprises from last year's final came in the men's 110m hurdles, where Olympic champion and veteran Jamaican Hansle Parchment stunned favourite Grant Holloway for the second time in two weeks to snatch the title. Parchment and Holloway meet again on Saturday, with the American hoping he can use home advantage to reassert his status as the man to beat on the Road to the Final this year. Both men, however, will also have one eye on another US star, Daniel Roberts, who tops the standings so far after back-to-back victories over Parchment in Xiamen and Suzhou last month. 

Perhaps the most staggering performance of all at last year's final was that of Norwegian distance star Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who cemented his status as one of the all-time greats of Diamond League history with a brilliant double triumph in the mile and the 3000m. Not only did Ingebrigtsen win both titles on back-to-back days, he also set a new Diamond League record in each discipline. On Saturday, he will be back to attack one of those records in the Bowerman Mile, where he goes up against a familiar array of rivals including Brits Josh Kerr and Jake Wightman, US record holder Yared Nuguse and 3000m steeplechase world record holder Lamecha Girma.