The 16 Diamond Race winners at the 2014 IAAF Diamond League final in Brussels, with IAAF President Lamine Diack (left) (© Gladys von der Laage)
The 2015 edition of the IAAF Diamond League gets underway on Friday in Doha (15) and is swiftly followed by a meeting in Shanghai on Sunday (17), providing an outstanding curtain-raiser to this year’s series.
Once again, the series of 14 meetings are each offering USD$480,000 in prize money and the IAAF Diamond League showcases 32 event disciplines which are carefully distributed among the meetings.
In each of the event disciplines, there is a Diamond Race with points available throughout the season.
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.
The overall winner of each of the 32 Diamond Races will receive a USD$40,000 cash prize and a spectacular Diamond Trophy.
Combine the individual meeting prize money with the Diamond Race cash, and the IAAF Diamond League is offering a total of USD$8 million in prize money in 2015.
To find out more, download the 2015 IAAF Diamond League media guide (5.5mb PDF).
This year’s media guide includes a plethora of useful statistics, including all-time statistics on wins, points and appearances.
The PDF file alongside this article has some additional statistics from the past five seasons which make interesting reading.
Among them is the fact that only nine athletes have managed win at an IAAF Diamond League meeting at least once in the past five seasons since the IAAF Diamond League was inaugurated in 2010.
All of these nine athletes could conceivably win at an IAAF Diamond League meeting again this year and keep their streak alive.
In addition, there are statistics for the numbers of athletes and nations who have won events, scored points or taken part in the IAAF Diamond League.
No fewer than 2175 athletes from 105 nations have taken part in IAAF Diamond League meetings between 2010 and 2014. 708 athletes from 84 countries have scored points, while 301 athletes from 62 countries have won events.
This all goes to show the global appeal of the IAAF Diamond League and our sport.
You can follow all the results and news throughout the 2015 IAAF Diamond League season on the IAAF website's dedicated IAAF Diamond League section and the official IAAF Diamond League website.
The IAAF Diamond League meetings in Doha and Shanghai will also be the first two meetings in the 2015 edition of the popular Fantasy Diamond Race.
IAAF
2015 IAAF Diamond League calendar
Doha, QAT – 15 May
Shanghai, CHN – 17 May
Eugene, USA – 30 May
Rome, ITA – 4 June
Birmingham, GBR – 7 June
Oslo, NOR – 11 June
New York, USA – 13 June
Paris, FRA – 4 July
Lausanne, SUI – 9 July
Monaco, MON – 17 July
London, GBR – 24-25 July
Stockholm, SWE – 30 July
Zurich, SUI – 3 September
Brussels, BEL – 11 September
