The Wanda Diamond League returned for its 14th season in 2023, and it was a year which immediately went down in history as one of, if not the greatest ever in the series' history. As well as returning to a full calendar of 14 meetings, the WDL also saw a record number of records and an increase in participation on 2022. Here are all the key figures from a historic 2023 campaign.
18 October, 2023
Wanda Diamond League 2023 in numbers
Photo: Chiara Montesano
Record number of records
Never before have so many major records been broken in a single Diamond League season. For starters, 2023 saw seven world records broken on the Diamond League circuit, almost as many as the series had seen in all of its 13 previous seasons put together.
Faith Kipyegon's hat-trick of world records in the women's 1500m, mile and 5000m was another jaw-dropping novelty, with the Kenyan becoming the first athlete ever to break more than one world record in a single Diamond League season.
Paris, where Kipyegon broke the second of her three records in the 5000m, was the first ever Diamond League meeting to see two world records on a single day, with Lamecha Girma also lighting it up in the men's 3000m steeplechase. It only took three months for the same thing to happen again, however, with Mondo Duplantis and Gudaf Tsegay also both breaking world records at the Wanda Diamond League Final in Eugene.
As if that wasn't enough, there were also 19 Diamond League records over the course of the 2023 season, almost double the amount set in 2022. A series record was broken at seven of the 14 meetings, with Paris and Eugene racking up an impressive five each.
Regional and national history was also made by athletes from all six continents, with 36 area records and 87 national records broken between May and September. Oceania saw more records than any other area, with a total of 12.
There were also 65 world leads set in the course of the Diamond League season, 14 more than in the previous campaign.
First-time winners
As well as records, 2023 also saw a whole host of new faces on the winners' podiums. No fewer than 25 athletes celebrated their first ever Diamond League win in 2023, a list which included Kenyan sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala, Swiss long jumper Simon Ehammer and Ethiopian distance star Sembo Almayew.
There were also 12 first-time champions this season, meaning more than a third of the 32 winners got their hands on the Diamond Trophy for the very first time. Among the first-time winners were up and coming stars like Kenyan steeplechaser Simon Kiprop Koech, but also some more seasoned campaigners like Andre De Grasse, Hansle Parchment, Gudaf Tsegay and Katie Moon.
Several countries also celebrated their first ever Diamond League title. Somewhat surprisingly for a country which has so often hosted the final,Simon Ehammer was the first Swiss athlete ever to be crowned Diamond League champion. Sanghyeok Woo also claimed a first title for South Korea in the men's high jump, while Haruka Kitaguchi became the first Japanese Diamond League champion in the women's javelin.
Worldwide reach
The Wanda Diamond League proved once again that it is a truly global series in 2023. With the inaugural Xiamen meeting in September, the series returned to China for the first time since 2019, meaning that the circuit once again encompassed 13 different countries and four continents represented over the course of the 135-day season.
A total of 93 countries from across the world were represented in Diamond League competition this year, with 1085 athletes taking part in the series, one more than in the previous year. Of those 1085, 537 male athletes took part from 77 countries and 548 female athletes from 70 countries.
The 32 Wanda Diamond League Champions are from 21 different countries, with both male and female winners from 12 different countries respectively.
