Global champions collide in Diamond League title hunt on day two in Zurich

Global gold medallists and world record-holders will descend on Zurich’s Letzigrund stadium in the fight for further honours during an action-packed second day of Wanda Diamond League Final competition on Thursday (28).

The first six Diamond League champions will be crowned at a street event on the Swiss city’s Sechseläutenplatz on day one of the Weltklasse Zürich, while a busy stadium session on Thursday (28) will see another 26 titles decided. As well as prize money ranging between US$30,000 and US$50,000, there are wild card entries to the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 up for grabs for winners.

Hurdles stars Femke Bol and Karsten Warholm are among the 15 reigning individual world champions who will compete in Zurich before they head to Japan to defend their global titles at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25, while the stacked fields also star 13 individual Olympic champions from Paris.

Many events offer a clash of global gold medallists, including the men’s 200m where two of those Olympic champions will renew their rivalry. Headlining the final event on the programme, Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo and Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles will go head-to-head in the half lap event – Tebogo on the hunt for his first Diamond League title and Lyles seeking his sixth.

Lyles – the world 100m and 200m champion – starts as the world leader thanks to the 19.63 he ran to win the US title, while Botswana’s Tebogo has a season’s best of 19.76. Both performances were achieved in Eugene – Tebogo’s when winning during the Diamond League meeting – and in their single 200m clash so far this year, Lyles pipped Tebogo to triumph in Monaco. Alexander Ogando was fourth on that occasion and he lines up alongside them again in Zurich, as does Joseph Fahnbulleh.

Olympic bronze medallist Brittany Brown defends her Diamond League title in the women’s event, up against her compatriots Anavia Battle and McKenzie Long plus Cote d’Ivoire’s Marie Josee Ta Lou-Smith and Great Britain’s Dina Asher-Smith, who will both double up in the 100m.

Their rivals in the shorter discipline will include Olympic champion Julien Alfred, who has only lost one race all year and who competes for the first time since her 200m win at the London Diamond League, plus Jamaica’s Tia Clayton.

South Africa’s Akani Simbine had a superb start to his season, winning the first three Diamond League 100m clashes, but in this final the Olympic fourth-place finisher will be pushed by Trayvon Bromell, Christian Coleman and defending Diamond League champion Ackeem Blake, who have all dipped under 9.90 this year.

Dominican Republic's world and Olympic champion Marileidy Paulino defends her 400m Diamond Trophy against the athletes she beat to the Olympic title last year, Salwa Eid Naser and Natalia Bukowiecka.

Six different men have won the seven 400m races on the Diamond League circuit this year. USA’s world indoor bronze medallist Jacory Patterson is the double winner and he takes on world indoor champion Christopher Bailey and Bayapo Ndori, winners in Shaoxing/Keqiao and Xiamen, respectively.

Two-lap showdown

The world champion and the Olympic champion reignite their rivalry in a field that closely resembles the men’s Olympic 800m final. Kenya’s world leader Emmanuel Wanyonyi, the Olympic champion who ran 1:41.44 in Monaco last month, goes up against Canada’s Marco Arop, the world champion who has run 1:42.22 this year. They respectively sit third and fourth on the world all-time list and face four other runners in history’s top 12: Djamel Sedjati, Bryce Hoppel, world indoor champion Josh Hoey and Mohamed Attaoui.

Switzerland’s 2022 world U20 silver medallist Audrey Werro will want to use the home advantage in the women’s event as she takes on Great Britain’s Olympic 1500m bronze medallist Georgia Hunter Bell and South Africa's world indoor champion Prudence Sekgodiso.

A new Diamond League women’s 1500m champion will be crowned for the first time since 2021, with Faith Kipyegon opting not to defend her title. It could stay with Kenya through Nelly Chepchirchir, but she will have some very strong opposition from Australia’s Olympic silver medallist Jessica Hull, who has run 3:52.67 this year, as well as Sarah Healy and Birke Haylom.

Similarly, after three consecutive Diamond Trophy wins for Jakob Ingebrigtsen, there will be a new champion in the men’s 1500m. Azeddine Habz is the world leader but he meets a loaded field including Phanuel Koech, Timothy Cheruiyot and Niels Laros, plus Yared Nuguse, who has the additional motivation of targeting a wild card place for Tokyo having missed out on automatic selection at the US Championships.

Sweden’s Andreas Almgren, who ran a European 5000m record to win in Stockholm, is also in the 3000m form of his life and, fresh from running a national record of 7:31.42 in Sollentuna, he contests the shorter distance against Ethiopia’s Kuma Girma, Biniam Mehary and Samuel Tefera, plus USA’s Grant Fisher.

The women’s 3000m field pits Ethiopia’s Hirut Meshesha and Likina Amebaw against Caroline Nyaga and Georgia Griffith, while Kenya’s Olympic and world bronze medallist Faith Cherotich leads the women’s 3000m steeplechase field. In the men’s event, Germany’s Frederik Ruppert – who broke through with an 8:01.49 runner-up finish in Rabat – faces Abrham Sime and world U20 champion Edmund Serem, whose brother Amos won last year's Diamond League title.

Bol and Warholm back for more

Bol and Warholm will want to maintain their fantastic 400m hurdles form to head to Tokyo on a high.

Bol has never lost a Diamond League 400m hurdles race since making her debut on the circuit in 2020, racking up 29 wins. The world champion will be determined to take that tally to 30 as she goes in pursuit of a fifth consecutive Diamond Trophy and she competes fresh from taking her world lead to 51.91 in Silesia 11 days ago.

Only Bol and three other athletes have ever gone faster than that in the history of the sport and Bol won’t face those rivals in Zurich. This time she will be joined by Andrenette Knight, who won in Rome, and Emma Zapletalova, who secured second place in Silesia and Oslo.

World record-holder Warholm also made a statement in Silesia, clocking 46.28 for the third-fastest time in history. Now targeting his third Diamond Trophy, he will take on Qatar’s 2019 world bronze medallist Abderrahman Samba and NCAA champion Ezekiel Nathaniel, who set a Nigerian record to finish second to Warholm in Silesia.

The 100m hurdles features eight of the leading 14 athletes on this season's top list, including Grace Stark, who ran 12.21 in Paris, plus world champion Danielle Williams, Nadine Visser, Ackera Nugent and home star Ditaji Kambundji.

The two fastest 110m hurdlers in the world this year clash as USA’s world leader Cordell Tinch, who ran 12.87 in May, races Rachid Muratake, who set a Japanese record of 12.92 earlier this month. They are joined by 2022 world silver medallist Trey Cunningham and home favourite Jason Joseph.

Clash of titans

The Weltklasse Zürich opens with six field events on Wednesday and the action resumes with the discus clashes on Thursday.

Valarie Allman and Matthew Denny both defend their Diamond League titles – Olympic champion Allman aiming for her fifth consecutive Diamond Trophy and Australia’s Olympic bronze medallist Denny seeking his third. They renew their rivalry with the world champions – USA’s Laulauga Tausaga and Sweden’s Daniel Stahl – and the stacked fields also feature world record-holder Mykolas Alekna, Olympic champion Roje Stona, 2022 world champion Kristjan Ceh, 2019 world champion Yaime Perez and two-time Olympic and world gold medallist Sandra Elkasevic, who secured six successive Diamond League titles between 2012 and 2017.

Both world champions and defending Diamond League champions are also in action in the javelin. India’s Neeraj Chopra and Grenada’s Anderson Peters take on world leader Julian Weber, who beat Chopra at the Diamond League meeting in Doha where both athletes surpassed 90 metres, while Japan’s Haruka Kitaguchi faces Olympic silver medallist Jo-Ane du Plessis, Adriana Vilagos and Elina Tzengko.

There are also returning champions in the triple jump – last year’s Diamond League Final winners Leyanis Perez of Cuba and Pedro Pichardo of Portugal line up alongside Olympic champion Thea LaFond, Liadagmis Povea, Jordan Scott and world leader Andy Diaz.

The long jump stars three women who have surpassed seven metres in 2025 – defending champion Larissa Iapichino, Hilary Kpatcha and two-time world champion Malaika Mihambo – as well as world indoor champion Claire Bryant.

In the high jump, New Zealand’s Olympic champion Hamish Kerr again goes head-to-head with USA’s Olympic silver medallist Shelby McEwen, plus Oleh Doroshchuk and JuVaughn Harrison.

Jess Whittington for World Athletics

Day one preview