A month on from the end of Paris 2024, a number of Olympic champions will be hoping to get their hands on another global title at next week’s Wanda Diamond League Final in Brussels.
The Road to the Final reaches its last stop at Weltklasse Zurich this Thursday, ending a gruelling, season-long journey for the world’s best athletes, who have competed across 14 different cities and four different continents to earn their place at the season finale.
A number of Olympic champions have already qualified and confirmed their attendance at athletics’ biggest event outside a major championships.
Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen - who won gold in the men’s 5000m in Paris - will seek to defend his 1500m Diamond League title at the King Baudouin Stadium.
He will be joined on track by fellow 1500m star and multiple world-record breaker Faith Kipyegon, who hopes to claim her fifth Diamond Trophy in 2024.
There will be more world-record-calibre talent in the jumps as Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis and Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh aim to defend their titles in the pole vault and high jump respectively.
Mahuchikch made history with 2.10m at the Wanda Diamond League Paris in July, while Duplantis’ 6.26m in Silesia last month means he has now broken the world record three times this season: once at the Olympics and twice in the Diamond League.
After three Diamond League wins in a row since the Olympics, Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo will head to Brussels with high hopes of claiming a first ever Diamond Trophy in the men’s 200m.
Tebogo will double as he has been granted a Global Wild Card by the Diamond League board for the 100m.
Other Olympic champions who have already booked their tickets to Brussels include Winfred Yavi and Soufiane El Bakkali in the men’s and women’s 3000m steeplechase, Emmanuel Wanyonyi in the men’s 800m and Femke Bol in the women’s 400m hurdles.
In the field events, Olympic gold medallists include Ryan Crouser in the men’s shot put, Haruka Kitaguchi in the women’s javelin, Nina Kennedy in the women’s pole vault, Yemisi Ogunleye in the women’s shot put and Valarie Allman in the women’s discus.
400m hurdles Olympic champion Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone will also compete at the Memorial Van Damme.
With two additional races outside of the Wanda Diamond League Final, the Brussels meeting wants to honour McLaughlin-Levrone, who produced a historic 400m hurdles world record at the Olympic Games in Paris. She will test her limits on 400m (Friday) and 200m (Saturday).
The 25-year-old did not qualify for the Wanda Diamond League Final in any discipline, and is ineligible to compete on a Global Wild Card as she has not made at least one appearance in the series this season.
The Wanda Diamond League is the premier one-day meeting series in athletics. It comprises 15 of the most prestigious events in global track and field. Athletes compete for points at the 14 series meetings in a bid to qualify for the two-day Wanda Diamond League Final in Brussels on 13th-14th September.
