It is 15 years since the Wanda Diamond League was created and 2025 will see a number of changes. This season will feature new and improved prize money, a new broadcast partner and, in coming weeks, a new website. There are also new rival competitions in the shape of Grand Slam Track and Athlos.
Instead of athletes earning up to $10,000 at individual Diamond League meetings and up to $30,000 at the final, those figures rise to $20,000 and $50,000 respectively in selected disciplines called Diamond+ events.
Some assume the Diamond League has done this as a response to Grand Slam Track offering generous prize money of $100,000 to group winners down to $10,000 for athletes who finish eighth. But Petr Stastny, chief executive of the Diamond League, denies this.
“Our prize money increase is not a reaction to any new project,” Stastny says. “We knew five years ago we would raise the prize money in 2025.
“Staging an athletics competition in the way we do requires a big investment. Since we were founded, or introduced, in 2010 we have handed out close to $200 million to athletes.”
Georgia Bell, Keely Hodgkinson and Jemma Reekie (Getty)
Mirroring the recent comments of World Athletics president Seb Coe, Stastny welcomes initiatives like Grand Slam Track and Athlos. “It’s good to see athletes getting more opportunities to earn more income,” he says. “Being a top athlete needs lots of focus, discipline and practise and they deserve to be paid well.”
However, he says fixture clashes are not ideal. Grand Slam Track’s second meeting in Miami on May 2-4, for example, coincides with the second of 15 Diamond League meetings in 2025 in Shanghai, China, on May 3.
“We usually establish our dates first and it allows other organisers to look for other non-clashing dates,” says Stastny. “We welcome the new projects but we don’t welcome date clashes and unfortunately they seem to be happening in 2025.”
Stastny admits there has been minimal communication between the Diamond League and Grand Slam Track over fixture clashes. “We don’t approach others and they don’t approach us. We feel it could be done but we don’t feel it’s on us to ask others when to put on their dates.”
Yared Nuguse and Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Getty)
Stastny says the Diamond League have worked closely with World Athletics, however, on the general calendar changes this season which will see this summer’s major championships in Tokyo take place in September after the entire Diamond League season has concluded with its final in Zurich on August 27-28.
“We support the new calendar,” he says. “The (Diamond League) champions will get a wild card to Tokyo so it creates a narrative through the season.”
Elsewhere, the Diamond League has switched from IMG to Infront when it comes to a broadcast partner. There are also plans to launch a new Diamond League website soon which will, among other things, attempt to simplify the ongoing frustration felt by fans relating to how and where to watch the meetings live on television.
There are no plans, however, to expand the current street athletics events at Diamond League meetings. The first day of the two-day final in Zurich, for instance, will see some jumps and the shot put in the city centre with the majority of other events the following day in the Letzigrund Stadium.
Mondo Duplantis (Getty)
“We like to bring athletics to the people and we see these events as being mainly a promotional tool,” says Stastny. “But they can be costly to organise so we will probably just continue to have some city events at three or four meetings a year such as Zurich, Lausanne and Stockholm.”
There will be no experiments with the controversial long jump take-off zone in 2025 either. But Stastny does not rule it out being used in the Diamond League in future.
Malaika Mihambo (Getty)
“Our sport is traditional and historic but it needs to evolve over time otherwise we’d still be jumping without a runway and doing a standing long jump as we did a hundred years ago,” he says. “We basically do not want a third of all long jump attempts to be with red flags at the stadium or fouls on TV all the time.”
Stastny draws comparisons with the ‘final three’ idea, which was introduced to bring more drama to field events but was criticised to begin with before the rules were subsequently tweaked a little to appease the critics.
“There was a real shit storm and resistance when we introduced the ‘final three’ idea,” Stastny says, “but we talked to the athletes and coaches and they got used to it.
“So I think if new elements are introduced then people get used to it. If we introduce it (take-off zone) in 2026 will depend on how many jumps are legal or not legal and whether we are really improving the product or not.
“We don’t have it at our meetings but we might in future. We will have to wait firstly to see what World Athletics’ evaluation of the 2024 season and what the 2025 season will begin. It (the take-off zone idea) needs to improve the offering of that discipline.”
Yaroslava Mahuchikh (Getty)
Diamond League fixtures in 2025Xiamen CHN April 26Shanghai/Keqiao CHN May 3Doha QAT May 16Rabat MAR May 25Rome ITA June 6Oslo NOR June 12Stockholm SWE June 15Paris FRA June 20Eugene USA July 5Monaco MON July 11London GBR July 19Silesia POL August 16Lausanne SUI August 20Brussels BEL 22 August 22Final in Zurich SUI August 27-28
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