The 2026 Diamond League winners (© Getty Images)
A total of seven meeting records were set on the final night of the Wanda Diamond League season in Brussels on Saturday (5).
The second night of action at the 50th edition of the Allianz Memorial Van Damme was the last chance for athletes to book their place at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship, which will bring the curtain down on the season next week.
Arguably the pick of the night’s races was the women’s 800m, as Audrey Werro eclipsed Pamela Jelimo’s 18-year-old meeting record following a thrilling race to the line with Femke Broeders-Bol.
The Dutch athlete, who has switched to the event this season, has shown signs of learning in every race she has contested and it was no different on the second night of the Diamond League Final.
Werro tried to shake off her rival in the home straight, but Broeders-Bol pushed her all the way to the line, dipping just six hundredths of a second shy of victory.
The two-time 400m hurdles world champion, who shook her head in frustration at the missed opportunity, will have a final chance to defeat the Swiss athlete in Budapest, where Keely Hodgkinson, who withdrew from Brussels, is also expected to line up in a star-studded field.
A week on from his world record in Zurich, Alison dos Santos produced the final meeting record of the night as he once again glided his way to a Diamond League win in 46.70, smashing a meeting record – 47.51 by Andre Phillips – that was set 40 years ago to the day.
And Dos Santos still looked like he had plenty left in the tank for his season finale at the Ultimate, where a prize pot of US$10million is up for grabs, including US$150,000 for each individual winner. At the line, he was 1.33 seconds clear of his closest challenger, Trevor Bassitt.
The other world record-holder from Zurich, Masai Russell, was unable to match those heights a week later but still clocked a meeting record of 12.20 to win from three-time world indoor champion Devynne Charlton (12.33) and Jamaica’s Megan Simmonds.
Kazimierska shatters personal best
Klaudia Kazimierska turned the tables on Georgia Hunter Bell, who had beaten her to European gold in Birmingham last month, taking a second and a half off her PB to win the women’s 1500m.
Her time of 3:54.05 was a world-leading meeting record and gave her victory over Kenya’s Dorcus Ewoi, who ran a PB (3:54.72), and Jessica Hull, who set a season’s best (3:54.73). Hunter Bell finished fourth.
Andy Diaz Hernandez broke Christian Taylor’s seven-year-old meeting record with an opening-round leap of 17.74m in the triple jump, which the rest of the six-man field failed to get close to in the remaining rounds.
Jamaica’s Rajindra Campbell shattered his PB, the Jamaican record and the meeting record as he won the men’s shot put with 23.08m, climbing to fourth on the world all-time list.
Campbell’s previous best had been the 22.59m he set in Brescia last week. He surpassed that in round two with 22.62m, a mark that would have been enough to win, before improving by some margin with his final throw. It also added 34 centimetres to the world lead previously held by Leonardo Fabbri.
The other meeting record on the night belonged to Marileidy Paulino, who won a fourth Diamond League title and her first since 2024 with 48.64, finishing more than half a second ahead of Henriette Jaeger.
A little over two weeks ago, Hana Moll had never won a Diamond League meeting. Now the 21-year-old rising star of the pole vault has three wins from Lausanne, Zurich and Brussels, as well as a PB.
Having cleared all five of her previous heights at the first attempt, she needed three tries at 4.91m before attempting a meeting record of 4.96m, where she came up short.
Another athlete enjoying the season of his life is Rumesh Tharanga Pathirage, who picked up his 12th victory in his past 13 events, although he fell shy of the meeting record of Jan Zelezný, who was in the stands on the night.
The Sri Lankan, recently crowned Commonwealth champion, sealed the win with a third-round throw of 89.04m. Poland’s Dawid Wegner produced a lifetime best of 87.47m for second, with Keshorn Walcott third.
Patterson edges out Mahuchikh
For the second successive competition, Eleanor Patterson edged out Olympic champion Yaroslava Mahuchikh in a captivating high jump final.
Patterson had enjoyed an unblemished record through her opening four heights and was the only competitor to clear 2.01m, adding the Diamond League title to her win over the Ukrainian in Heilbronn just a few days earlier.
Nafi Thiam delighted the home crowd inside the King Baudouin Stadium by lining up in the event, but could only make it past 1.84m.
Letsile Tebogo may have been one of the first athletes to book his place at the Ultimate by winning 200m Olympic gold, but he has ground to make up between now and Budapest after finishing fifth in Brussels.
Kenny Bednarek recovered from a cold earlier in the week to match his world-leading 19.62 and comfortably lead the field home ahead of African duo Sinesipho Dambile and Makanakaishe Charamba.
Jamaica’s Tina Clayton was the only woman under 11 seconds as she won the women’s 100m in 10.93 ahead of European champion Amy Hunt and Sha’Carri Richardson of the US.
Meanwhile, the men’s 3000m steeplechase proved a straight head-to-head between Morocco’s Soufiane El Bakkali and Gemechu Godana, but when the 20-year-old Ethiopian ratcheted up the pace over the final lap, El Bakkali conceded defeat, 8:08.67 to 8:10.03.
Bahrain’s Birhanu Balew produced an electric final lap to pull clear of the field and take more than two seconds off the world-leading time in the men’s 5000m, winning with an Asian record of 12:45.70. The top six men finished inside 12:50.
In the women’s javelin, Olympic champion Haruka Kitaguchi saved her best throw for last, but it still came up short of teenage sensation Yan Ziyi, who threw 68.42m for the win.
In the women’s long jump, Larissa Iapichino saved her best jump until the final round, but her effort was five centimetres shy of Monae’ Nichols’ winning mark of 6.91m.
Matt Majendie for World Athletics
