By David Melly
April 30, 2025
This past Saturday in Xiamen, China, the 2025 Diamond League circuit kicked off with a bang. And another bang, and another, and another.
There weren’t a ton many blazing-fast times to write home about. (With all due respect to Faith Kipyegon, her 2:29.21 1000-meter victory was about as anticlimactic as the third-fastest performance in history could be, since it was both a tick off her 2:29.15 lifetime best and just behind four-minute mile pace—now the elephant in the room for every one of Faith’s pre-Breaking4 races.) And while technically a world record was set in the 300m hurdles, Karsten Warholm was merely breaking his own record. And let’s be honest: on the pro level, no one really cares about the 300m hurdles.
No, the source of repeated fireworks in Xiamen came from upset after upset after upset. Instead of carrying forward their winning momentum into the outdoor season, six of the seven World Indoor champions in attendance lost their Diamond League season debut, the sole exception being—who else?—Mondo Duplantis.
Some results were crazier than others. In a stacked women’s shot put field, it’s not entirely shocking that Sarah Mitton got taken down by 20+ meter performances from Jessica Schilder (20.47m) and Chase Jackson (20.31m). Gudaf Tsegay isn’t really even the favorite when Beatrice Chebet is next to her on the starting line, and Chebet proved why with a 14:27.12 5000m victory and a 26.6 second final 200m. Yes, you read that right. Chebet, in the women’s race, closed her final 200 meters in twenty-six seconds and looked perfectly controlled doing it. Chebet is going to continue to be a problem for, well, everyone in the world not named Faith Kipyegon, for a while.
Beatrice Chebet | Photo courtesy Diamond League AG
Chris Bailey kept his ascendent 2025 season rolling with a 44.27 personal best in the 400m, but he couldn’t quite reel in Bayapo Ndori in the final steps. Ndori stayed a hair’s breadth ahead in 44.25 and remains undefeated on the season with six straight wins.
Let’s talk about those short hurdles, though. Winning gold in Nanjing proved to be something of a curse in the Xiamen 100/110H, where Grant Holloway took an uncharacteristically awkward step after the eighth hurdle and ended up dead last while Cordell Tinch opened up his year with a 13.06 victory. In the women’s race, Devynne Charlton clattered a hurdle early and ended up a DNF while Danielle Williams tracked down Grace Stark at the line, 12.53 to 12.58. Fortunately, neither World Indoor champ appeared injured (and Holloway seemed to indicate online after the race it was more of a fluke performance), but Holloway has now lost two straight races for the first time in over a year and Charlton still can’t quite seem to fully translate her success at 60 meters to its outdoor cousin.
On top of all that, when was the last time we watched a meet where Letsile Tebogo, Shericka Jackson, and Soufiane El Bakkali were handily beaten? It’s not often any of these stalwarts of the DL racing circuit get taken down, and certainly not at the same time.
Jackson is continuing a slow return to racing after injuries derailed her 2024 season, but the reality is that the fastest 200-meter runner alive finished 1.38 seconds off her personal best and 0.39 seconds behind winner Anavia Battle. Battle, on the other hand, is having a phenomenal start to the year, winning her first three open races of the season and clocking a lifetime-best 10.98 in the 100m a few weeks ago. Tebogo was dropping down to the 100m, not competing in his specialty 200-meter event. But let’s not forget that the 21-year-old has a World silver in the shorter event and a 9.86 personal best and still finished seventh in the race in 10.20. Tebogo has had plenty of time to brush off the rust, however, as he’s already raced seven times in 2025. He’s lost more than he’s won with season’s bests of just 10.20/20.23/45.26 to date.
Tebogo and Jackson boosters will argue that it’s still early in the season and success at a September championship necessitates a quiet April. But if we’re being honest, both those results are not encouraging for two major sprint stars.
The most surprising result, perhaps, is El Bakkali getting outkicked by Ethiopian Samuel Firewu, who before Saturday was 0-6 against the two-time Olympic champ head-to-head. From 2021 to 2024, El Bakkali had a 13-race winning streak going in the steeplechase, but he’s now lost twice in a row, after finishing second to Amos Serem in last year’s Diamond League final and Firewu in this year’s opener. But then again, El Bakkali hasn’t been beaten in a global final since 2019, so he probably still deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Speaking of streaks, some favorites did deliver in Xiamen, and now Valarie Allman’s head-spinning (and arm-and-leg-spinning) winning streak in the discus is up to 19 competitions, with her 68.95m victory over past World champs Yaime Perez and Laulauga Tausaga-Collins. Yaroslava Mahuchikh got revenge on her Australian nemeses in the high jump, which again raises the question of whether she has World Indoors-specific yips—her only two losses in the last two years came there. And of course, the only guy in the sport with a better streak than Val remains Mondo, whose string of pole vault victories extends to 25 with his 5.92m win in Xiamen.
It feels unfair to root for the favorite to lose purely because they’re the top dog, but unexpected results are always more interesting. And although the Diamond League sometimes receives criticism (from us as well as others) for yielding repetitive outcomes, this year’s opener certainly bucked the trend. If every DL meet this season is going to be as unpredictable as this one, we’re in for quite the thrilling roller-coaster ride.
David Melly
David began contributing to CITIUS in 2018, and quickly cemented himself as an integral part of the team thanks to his quick wit, hot takes, undying love for the sport and willingness to get yelled at online.
