By Chris Chavez and David Melly

The Diamond League returns from its one-month break for national championships and Silesia is the starting point for athletes still vying for their respective spots in the Diamond League final in Zurich (Sept. 27-28). The decision by World Athletics to have the Diamond League final before the World Championships and then that be the end of the season has paid off massively in getting more attention than ever on standings and point totals in the final few meets. There is more jeopardy than ever.

We provided a refresher on how the Diamond League wild card for the World Championships works in the latest episode of The CITIUS MAG Podcast.

This meet is loaded with talent, including world record holders Mondo Duplantis, Faith Kipyegon, and Beatrice Chebet in action.

How to watch: The Diamond League action is set to start at 10 a.m. ET. You can watch all of it live on Flotrack with a subscription or watch like we do by utilizing NordVPN and setting your location to Australia or any of the countries that allow you to watch it on the Wanda Diamond League YouTube channel. (You can sort through various countries here and set your location to one of the territories broadcasting on YouTube.) NordVPN is just $3.99/month.

Here is a rundown of all the top athletes and storylines to watch in the track events:

Men’s Shot Put

World leader Leo Fabbri of Italy faces off against four of the top five finishers from USAs – everyone except national champ Josh Awotunde. Fabbri threw his world-leading 22.82m to win the Italian national title but his last two times out have been stinkers – an 18-meter effort at the Folksam Grand Prix in Sweden and a no-mark performance at the Istvan Gyulai Memorial in Poland. Joe Kovacs won that meet in 22.33m after failing to make the U.S. team, and he’ll want to keep stacking up winds to salvage the latter half of his season.

Men’s High Jump

The men’s high jump has been one of the weirder and quieter events on the circuit this season, with no one emerging particularly dominant. With no Sanghyeok Woo in the field, someone like Hamish Kerr of New Zealand or Jan Stefela of Czechia is probably the slight favorite, but this entire field is closely matched. Reigning World champion Gianmarco Tamberi is entered, but he’s had an abysmal summer so far with only a 2.20m season’s best and he’ll need to step up his game here to have any shot of contending in Tokyo.

Women’s Long Jump

Five of the nine entrants in this field are American, all of whom finished in the top seven at USAs, but the absence of Tara Davis-Woodhall means the win will likely come down to a battle between three seven-meter Europeans: three-time global champ Malaika Mihambo, last year’s DL final winner Larissa Iapichino, and Frenchwoman Hilary Kpatcha. Mihambo is riding a three-win streak and her last loss was to Davis-Woodhall at Pre, so the veteran German is likely the safest bet.

Men’s Pole Vault

As has been the case for years, when Mondo Duplantis is in the field, everyone else is jumping for second. Fans may hope after Tuesday’s world-record performance that we’re in for another historic mark, but don’t hold your breath: while Duplantis has been able to break his own record in close proximity before (seven days apart in 2020 and 20 days apart in 2024), continuing to literally raise the bar twice in one week would be unprecedented. We’ll still be in for a dominant performance, regardless: Duplantis has cleared six meters in all but one of his 12 competitions this year.

Women’s 800m

We’re hoping there’s a way to watch this 800m race since it’s before the world feed broadcast is slated to start. Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson is set to race for the first time in over a year after multiple setbacks in her recovery from a hamstring injury this past winter. This will be a fairly telling race of Hodgkinson’s fitness with a month to go until the World Championships. However, she is no stranger to opening up fast over 800m, with a 1:55.78 at last year’s Prefontaine Classic and a 1:55.77 at the Paris Diamond League in 2023. Those were meets with two to three months until the global championships, so she’s working on a compressed timeline, but it’s worked in her favor that no dominant force in the event has emerged in her absence.

Women’s 400m

The full Paris Olympics 400m podium (Marileidy Paulino, Salwa Eid Naser and Natalia Bukowiecka) meet again for the first time since the Games. This is the fifth meeting over 400m between Paulino and Naser. Paulino has gone 3–0 against Naser since her loss at Grand Slam: Kingston in April. Bukowiecka is coming off a 35.51 to 35.85 win over Naser at 300m at a small meet in Białystok in Poland last weekend.

Women’s 3000m

The Diamond League has set up another world record attempt for Faith Kipyegon as she looks to take down Wang Junxia’s 8:06.11 world record from 1993. Kipyegon is coming off lowering her 1500m world record to 3:48.68 at the Prefontaine Classic. The World Athletics scoring tables put that to a 1298 point performance, which equates to an 8:03.41 for 3000m.

A little backstory on that record before we proceed: The record is deemed highly suspicious after a letter from 1995 was uncovered that was signed by Wang and many of her former training partners, revealing that coach Ma Junren forced them to take banned substances under his watch. In the early 2000s, when Ma was asked about doping allegations against Wang, he said she was only fed turtle blood, ginseng, and a stamina-boosting caterpillar fungus.

Earlier this season, 5000m and 10,000m Olympic champion Beatrice Chebet gave the world record a stab at the Doha Diamond League and came away with an 8:11.56 African record and moved to No.2 on the all-time list.

Kipyegon will have some good help in this one with the aid of the pace lights but also as she’s slated to get 1200m of help from Sage Hurta-Klecker (who paced her in Eugene) and could be pushed by Olympic 1500m silver medalist Jess Hull, who has gone 8:24.39 indoors and 8:25.82 outdoors.

Women’s 100m Hurdles

We say it often – the women’s 100m hurdlers don’t duck each other. This one will have Olympic champion Masai Russell (fresh off a 12.22 victory at the U.S. Championships), world record holder Tobi Amusan, and a Jamaican trio of Ackera Nugent, Danielle Williams and Megan Tapper, who look to make their case as medal contenders for Tokyo as Olympic medalists Jasmine Camacho-Quinn and Cyrena Samba-Mayela have struggled with injuries this year. Tapper’s PB is significantly slower than Amusan’s and Russell’s, at 12.34, but the Jamaican champion was the winner over Russell and a strong field at the Monaco Diamond League in July.

Women’s 1500m

Chebet will be stepping into Kipyegon’s marquee event and taking on her first 1500m since 2023. Her personal best is 4:06.09 from her win at the 2023 Kenyan National Championships at altitude in Nairobi. After her 13:58.06 5000m world record at the Prefontaine Classic, she seemed excited about the prospects of running a good 1500m. (For what it’s worth: That 5000m world record is worth 1286 on the scoring tables, which is the equivalent of a 3:50.20 for 1500m – which would put her at No. 3 on the all-time list).

It’s not a given that Chebet will run away with this one like she has in many of her races. Nine of the top 15 fastest women are entered in this one. She’ll have competition from Gudaf Tsegay (who blasted a 4:11.88 mile at the London Diamond League with a 59-second opening lap), Diribe Welteji (who ran 3:51.44 behind Kipyegon and moved to No. 8 on the all-time list), Georgia Hunter Bell (3:54.76 SB from Pre) and U.S. champion Nikki Hiltz (3:55.96 SB from Pre).

Coming off their sixth straight national title over 1500m, Hiltz could be in a position to take a crack at Shelby Houlihan’s 3:54.99 American record from 2019 given the caliber of this field.

Men’s Javelin Throw

Julian Weber is the man to watch here – he started the year with a 91.06m lifetime best, and proceeded to win seven of his next eight competitions. The only man to take him down in 2025 is Neeraj Chopra, who won’t be in Silesia, so unless someone like Anderson Peters reclaims his past form (Peters’s season’s best is third in the field at 85.64m but his lifetime best is 93.07m set in 2022), Weber will be tough to beat.

Men’s 100m

It’s a bit peculiar why this event isn’t at the end of the meet since it will star the first rematch of Olympic gold medalist Noah Lyles and Olympic silver medalist Kishane Thompson since the Paris final. Thompson has appeared to be in fantastic form and sits atop the world list with his 9.75 from the Jamaican Championships. Lyles opened up with a 10.00 at the London Diamond League but his 19.63 victory in the 200m final at the U.S. Championships indicates that he’s in better shape.

Even though the Lyles vs. Thompson match-up is enticing, a lot of attention will also be on Lyles facing 200m Olympic silver medalist and 100m U.S. champion Kenny Bednarek for the first time since The Staredown and Shove in Eugene. Bednarek told CNN that he met with Lyles following the race and “we both came to an agreement with things and we’re good now.” That’s Bednarek’s read on the situation. We’ll see if Lyles agrees.

When you look at the list, it could be deemed a championship-caliber final (with the exception of Poland’s Oliwer Wdowik getting a lane) with five American stars, Thompson and Ackeem Blake, plus South African star Akani Simbine.

Women’s 400m Hurdles

With Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone’s decision to commit to the 400m for the remainder of the season, Femke Bol has a clearer path to defending her World Championship gold medal and the Diamond League title. The American contingent could look to close the gap or upset her. We’ll see if Jasmine Jones can get closer. 

Bol and NCAA champion Savannah Sutherland are the only two women in this field who have broken 53 seconds on the season. Sutherland was slated to face Bol at the Continental Tour meet in Budapest on Tuesday but withdrew after warmups. Bol ended up dominating the race in 52.24 to win by more than two seconds.

Men’s 1500m

This was slated to be Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s opener but he withdrew from Silesia and Brussels as he continues to heal from an Achilles injury, according to his spokesperson. However, Ingebrigtsen’s Instagram account makes it seem like a return is imminent.

His absence is good news for Olympic bronze medalist Yared Nuguse, who will look to race his way to the World Championships by trying to clinch the Diamond League crown. Nuguse sits in 12th in the Diamond League standings. The top 12 athletes will be invited to the Diamond League final in Zurich. Between two good performances in Silesia and Brussels, he should get his spot in the final. Hobbs Kessler, who finished fourth in the 1500m final at the U.S. Championships, is also looking for that same luck but needs more points. (Josh Hoey, the fastest American on the year thus far with his 3:29.75 season’s best, is also entered.)

The field features a strong Kenyan showing with Reynold Cheruiyot, Timothy Cheruiyot, Abel Kipsang and Festus Lagat, who have all run 3:30.94 or faster. Interestingly, Olympic steeplechase champion Soufiane El Bakkali is also entered in his first 1500m of the season. Niels Laros was originally on the start list but is no longer racing.