IAAF Diamond League logo (© c)
The 2013 IAAF Diamond League has reached its halfway point with the conclusion of the Sainsbury’s Grand Prix in Birmingham on Sunday and so this is the ideal time to look at who the stars of the series have been so far and how the Diamond Race is shaping up in many events.
In most of the disciplines, the Diamond Race is still wide open but there are two events where only one more win is needed to win the Diamond Race in 2013: the women’s 1500m and Discus Throw.
Another eight athletes have commanding leads in their events and there are six athletes who have won at all the 2013 Diamond League meetings that have staged their events.
A huge amount of interesting statistics can be seen in the attached document, a pdf file which can be downloaded, to the right-hand-side of this story.
The IAAF Diamond League is comprised of 14 of the best invitational track and field meetings in the world. The meetings are spread across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the USA, and are the top tier of the IAAF’s global one-day meeting competition structure.
This series of 14 meetings, which began in 2010, showcases 32 event disciplines which are carefully distributed amongst the meetings.
The Diamond Race – How it works
In each of the 32 event disciplines there is a ‘Diamond Race’ with points available throughout the 14 meeting season.
Winners of each Diamond Race receive a 40,000 USD cash prize and a spectacular Diamond Trophy created by Beyer, one of the oldest and most respected jewellers in the world, but more importantly, they will have shown season long consistency to earn the unchallenged honour of being the World Number 1.
Each of the 32 event disciplines is staged seven times with the top three athletes being awarded the same amount of points at each meeting with the exception of the Final where the points are doubled.
Points per event discipline at each meeting
1st place - 4 points (Final: 8 points) 2nd place - 2 points (Final: 4 points) 3rd place - 1 point (Final: 2 points)
The athlete with the highest number of points in each event discipline at the end of the IAAF Diamond League season wins the ‘Diamond Race’.
In case of equality on points, the number of victories decides the winner. If there still is a tie, the better result at the Final acts as the tie-breaker. For an athlete to win a Diamond Race and its associated prize, and/or to be ranked in the final points standings, he / she must compete in the final (Zürich or Brussels) of their event discipline.
Click here for the IAAF website’s dedicated Diamond League section
Click here for the official IAAF Diamond League website
IAAF Diamond League calendar
Doha, QAT – 10 May
Shanghai, CHN – 18 May
New York, USA – 25 May
Eugene, USA – 1 Jun
Rome, ITA – 6 Jun
Oslo, NOR – 13 Jun
Birmingham, GBR – 30 Jun
Lausanne, SUI – 4 Jul
Paris, FRA – 6 Jul
Monaco, MON – 19 Jul
London, GBR – 26-27 Jul
Stockholm, SWE – 22 Aug
Zürich, SUI – 29 Aug
Brussels, BEL – 6 Sep
