2024 Season Review: Post-Paris punches

After an enthralling few weeks at the Paris Olympics, the world's best athletes returned to Wanda Diamond League action in Lausanne on August 22nd to continue their quest for the last global title of the series. 

Kenya's Emmanuel Wanyoni stole the headlines at Athletissima, setting a new series record of 1:41.11 to go joint second on the all-time list in the men's 800m. Though it didn't earn him any Diamond League points, the victory was nonetheless another statement win for the reigning series champion, who had claimed gold in Paris earlier in the month.

Other Olympic champions also continued their winning ways in Lausanne, with Mondo Duplantis clearing a meeting record of 6.15m in the pole vault street event and Letsile Tebogo winning at Athletissima for the second year in a row with 19.64 in the men's 200m. The Botswanan, who was still a rising star when he claimed his first ever Diamond League win in Lausanne in 2023, returned as Olympic champion in 2024, and his win would kickstart a sparkling run of form in August and September.

For other athletes, the return to Diamond League action was a chance to restore some wounded pride after Olympic agony. Having narrowly missed out on a medal in the women's 1500m in Paris, Ethiopia's Diribe Welteji clocked a new 3000m PB of 8:21.50 in Lausanne in the first of two back-to-back Diamond League wins in August. Jakob Ingebrigtsen, meanwhile, banished the ghosts of his shock 1500m defeat in the Olympic final with an impressive victory over gold medal winner Cole Hocker.

If Lausanne was about returning stars and Olympic revenge, then the following meeting was all about the records. With the pressure off after Paris, several of the world's biggest stars now had free rein to strut their stuff as the series touched down in Silesia. 

Ingebrigtsen was the first to strike when he smashed one of the longest-standing world records in track with a staggering 7:17.55 in the men's 3000m, shaving three seconds off Daniel Komen's previous record from 1996. 

As so often at Diamond League meetings in the last two years, one world record soon led to another as Mondo Duplantis cleared 6.26m to break the world record for the 10th time in his career and the third time in 2024.

It was the fourth time in Diamond League history that two world records had been broken at the same meeting and the second time it had happened in the 2024 season. 

Yet Ingebrigtsen and Duplantis were not the only ones who thrived in the sweltering heat of Silesia. There were also meeting records for Tebogo in the men's 200m, Marileidy Paulino in the women's 400m and Femke Bol in the women's 400m hurdles, while Jamaican rising star Ackera Nugent claimed her first ever Diamond League win in the 100m hurdles.

Marco Arop's 1:41.86 in the men's 800m saw him beat Wanyonyi and go fourth on the all-time list, while Italian high jump star Gianmarco Tamberi battled back to his best form with a winning 2.31m after his Olympic hopes had been dashed by illness earlier in the month.

It wasn't just individuals like Tamberi and Ingebrigtsen who managed to bounce back from Olympic disappointment in the Diamond League in late summer. In some cases, it was also an entire county. 

After an unusually meagre haul of track medals at Paris 2024, Jamaica's fortunes took a welcome turn for the better on the Diamond League stage as athletes such as Rasheed Broadbell, Tia Clayton and Ackera Nugent began to wrack up the victories once again. 

Nugent's victory in Silesia was followed by a stunning performance in Rome, in which the 22-year-old clocked a world lead and Jamaican record of 12.24, beating the likes of Olympic champion Masai Russell and former world record holder Keni Harrison.

Elsewhere, Bahrain's Winfred Yavi came within a whisker of breaking the 3000m steeplechase world record, her 8:44.39 coming at just 0.07 behind the mark Beatrice Chepkoech set at the Monaco Diamond League in 2018.

Faith Kipyegon also continued her love affair with the Pietro Mennea Golden Gala, taking her second win of the season to secure qualification to the Diamond League Final, and newly crowned Olympic long jump champion Tara Davis-Woodhall leapt to her first ever Diamond League victory with an impressive 7.02m. 

After a months-long journey crossing four continents and 13 different countries, the Road to the Final touched down in Zurich on September 5th for the last series meeting and the last chance for athletes to qualify for the final.

With the final just a week away and stars such as Sha'Carri Richardson and Katie Moon still yet to secure qualification, there was plenty at stake at the Letzigrund Stadium.

For some, that proved to be the perfect amount of pressure. In the women's 100m, Richardson raced to her first Diamond League win since May with an impressive 10.84, while in the men's 200m, Tebogo extended his post-Olympic winning streak to four with a brilliant 19.55.

Yet there were also shock defeats for some big stars. In the men's 1500m, Ingebrigtsen was outsmarted by a resurgent Yared Nuguse, who kicked past the Norwegian in style to win in 3:29.01. In the women's 100m hurdles, Olympic champion Masai Russell suffered her second successive defeat, this time at the hands of Jasmine Camacho-Quinn. 

Perhaps the most impressive performance of the night came from 2022 Diamond League champion Beatrice Chebet, who clocked a world lead and meeting record of 14:09.52, hitting her best form just in time to launch a fresh assault on the Diamond Trophy in Brussels the following week.