Rome Diamond League Preview: Faith Kipyegon Headlines Stacked Field + More Athletes, Events To Follow

By Paul Hof-Mahoney

The relentless torrent of post-Olympic Diamond Leagues keeps rolling Friday afternoon in Rome with the 44th annual Golden Gala. This meet has seen too many historic performances to count, but we’ll give a quick nod to Hicham El Gerrouj’s world records in the 1500m and the mile. A new chapter to this story will be written this week inside the Stadio Olimpico with seven 2024 Olympic champions among the authors. 

The meet will be streamed on Peacock (subscription required) for U.S. fans beginning at 3pm E.T. and on the World Athletics YouTube channel for most other countries. You can follow along with live results and a full entry list here.

Here are some the athletes and events to keep a close eye on:

Kipyegon Headlines Stacked 1500m Field In Her First Race Since Paris

I feel the need to clarify that the header for this section means her first race since the Paris Olympics, not the Paris Diamond League, where she broke her own 1500m world record in July. Now the only three-time 1500m Olympic champion in history, Faith Kipyegon returns to the same meet where she first set the world record over that distance last June. There should be a stark difference between this year’s race and last year’s, however, because the field behind Kipyegon has gotten much stronger.

When Kipyegon ran 3:49.11 here last summer (although technically the meet was held in Florence), she won by nearly eight seconds. When she reset that world record earlier this year, she ran 3:49.04 and only won by about a second-and-a-half. The GOAT will surely be chasing some more history, trying to become only the third woman ever to break this record three or more times, and she should benefit from being pushed to her absolute limit.

Jess Hull gave Kipyegon as good of a run for her money as anyone has lately at the Paris Diamond League, dropping five seconds off her PB and becoming the fifth-fastest woman in history in 3:50.83. Since that race, Hull has smashed the 2000m world record in Monaco and became the first Australian woman to ever medal in an Olympic 1500m final, cementing her place as one of the best milers in the world. Now that she finds herself in another paced battle with Kipyegon, it wouldn’t be entirely outside the realm of possibility to see her join the world record holder as the only women to dip under 3:50. 

The young Ethiopian duo of Birke Haylom and Freweyni Hailu are always dangerous in Diamond League races and will be running with chips on their respective shoulders – Haylom for failing to make the final in Paris and Hailu for not being selected to the Ethiopian team despite becoming World Indoor champion in March. Hull’s countrywoman Linden Hall has proven time and time again to be capable of running something quick, and all Italian eyes will be locked on Nadia Battocletti. The 10,000m silver medalist from Paris will be dropping down in distance in front of a home crowd.

World Record Watch In The Men’s 5000m?

The field assembled for this race on Friday is enough to get any track fan drooling. Five of the 10 fastest men in history and eight of the 18 fastest ever will be toeing the line in Rome, and Joshua Cheptegei’s 12:35.36 from 2020 is almost certainly in danger. 

The fastest PB in the field belongs to Hagos Gebrhiwet, who clocked the second-fastest time in history at the end of May in Oslo. The 30-year-old Ethiopian was among the favorites headed into his third Olympics earlier this month, but was only able to finish in fifth. While gold is the ultimate goal, it’d be a nice consolation prize if he could come away with a world record and bring it back to Ethiopia. The man who hung with Gebrhiwet up until a devastating final 400m in that race in Oslo was his countryman Yomif Kejelcha, who still finished as the fourth-fastest man ever. Kejelcha had a whirlwind of an Olympics after being passed over for the 5000m team, finishing sixth in the 10,000m, and then finally claimed that there would be punishments from the Ethiopian federation if their athletes did not aggressively front-run at the Games. With the dust settled on that debacle, Kejelcha got back to racing last week, taking third in the 3000m in Silesia, and will be looking to edge out his compatriot on Friday.

Rounding out the ridiculously strong Ethiopian contingent are Berihu Aregawi, Olympic silver medalist over 10,000m, Selemon Barega, the 10,000m Olympic champ from Tokyo, and Telahun Haile Bekele. If these three can race up to their potential, any of them could join the sub-12:40 club, whose membership currently sits at six. 

Moving to another East African nation, Ronald Kwemoi of Kenya will be racing his first 5000m since becoming an Olympic silver medalist at the distance a few weeks ago. If his newfound confidence means he might be able to hang with the big dogs, he should be able to comfortably dip under the 13 minute barrier for the first time in his career. Fellow Kenyans Jacob Krop and Nicholas Kipkorir, as well as Canada’s Moh Ahmed, all come into this race having run in the mid-12:40s before, but the fastest season’s best among them is Ahmed’s 12:54.22.

Huge Olympic Rematches In Rare Men’s Throws Double-Feature

We haven’t yet been treated to a Diamond League meet with two throwing events on the men’s side this year, but the meet organizers in Rome were able to bring together some phenomenal fields for the first one. 

The discus throwers will be taking to the ring first, and it’s the first major competition for most of these men since the Olympics. Rojé Stona will be making his Diamond League debut this weekend and competing for the first time with the title of “Olympic champion” hanging over his head. The pressure will be on him to keep up his winning ways, but it’ll take nothing short of a herculean effort to do so, as the rest of the top seven finishers from Paris have also made their way to Rome and will be looking for revenge. Chief amongst these challengers will be world record holder Mykolas Alekna, who is undefeated in every one-off meet he’s competed in this year, but he was taken down at both the European Championships and the Olympics.

The shot put will be somewhat of a rematch of what was a solid competition in Silesia on Sunday. Leonardo Fabbri will be looking to put on a show for the home crowd, but he’ll have to contend with the two best in history, Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs, who both got the better of him in Silesia. Olympic bronze medalist Rajindra Campbell is coming off a disappointing eighth-place finish in Silesia, where he threw nearly a meter-and-a-half less than what he managed in Paris. He should be able to bounce back.

Men’s 100m Field Is Set To Put On A Show

Three of the nine lanes in this final race of Friday’s programs are occupied by global 100m champions, and a fourth is taken up by the newly-crowned Olympic 200m champion. Safe to say it’s gonna be a good one. 

Fred Kerley is coming into this race with the most momentum in 100m, a few weeks removed from taking home Olympic bronze in Paris and having beaten much of this field Sunday morning in Poland. In a year where he has proved so much about himself, a win here would simply be icing on the cake for him. Letsile Tebogo has a different kind of momentum, as he’s proved to be untouchable in his last handful of 200m races, dating back to the Olympic final. He set a new PB and Botswana national record of 9.86 in the 100m final in Paris, but that was only good enough to finish sixth. He’ll certainly be looking for more this time out.

Christian Coleman is almost certainly entering his first individual race since barely missing the U.S. Olympic team in both the 100m and 200m with a head full of steam and seeing red. These late season revenge runs worked in Coleman’s favor last September, as he closed his 2023 with back-to-back 9.83 second clockings to win the Diamond League crown after a fifth-place finish in Budapest.

Marcell Jacobs has been running very well this summer and should get a boost from the home crowd, and Ferdinand Omanyala will be out to get back the hundredth-of-a-second he lost to Kerley by in Silesia. His 9.88 clocking was the third-fastest time Omanyala has ever run outside of Nairobi.

Other Highlights:

- Tara Davis-Woodhall takes center stage in the women’s long jump at her first Diamond League of the year and first competition since claiming Olympic gold. It’s an American-heavy field, as the champ will have to do battle with double Olympic bronze medalist Jasmine Moore.

- The men’s 400m race could get very spicy, as the third-, fourth-, and fifth-place finishers from Paris are all going head-to-head. Muzala Samukonga, Jereem Richards, and Kirani James have all ran some of the fastest times in history this year, with respective season’s bests of 43.74, 43.78, and 43.78 once more. 

- Winfred Yavi will be running her first steeplechase race since becoming the fourth Olympic champion in Bahraini history. The second-fastest woman in history will be squaring off against a loaded startlist, which includes Val Constien and Courtney Wayment on the American side.

- The women’s 100mH race will be as great as it always is, with seven of nine entrants having run 12.40 or faster in 2024. Olympic champion Masai Russell will be on the hunt for the first Diamond League win of her career and, oddly enough, her first win of the outdoor season not at U.S. Trials or the Olympics. 

Thanks for reading! Tune in to the Rome Diamond League on August 30 at 3pm E.T. and follow along with us on Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube for live coverage, interviews, analysis, and more.