It's May, meaning World Athletics Diamond League competition is about to get underway for elite track and field athletes.
The first meet of the 2023 Wanda Diamond League season, the Seashore Group Doha Meeting, is set for this Friday at the Khalifa International Stadium, in Doha, Qatar.
The 14-event calendar has stops all over the world, starting with this Friday's meeting in the Qatari capital. The schedule is noticeably different this year with the Diamond League Final coming to this side of the world for the first time ever. It will be held at historic Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, USA – the site of last year's world championships.
The Bahamas' national record holder in the women's 100 meters (m) hurdles will be the only Bahamian in action in the Diamond League opener this Friday. Devynne Charlton will compete alongside a stacked field, taking on some of the world's best hurdlers.
Charlton, who had her best race at the Eugene World Championships, setting the national record at 12.46 seconds, will run against Olympic Champion Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, of Puerto Rico, who just ran a wind-aided 12.29 seconds this past weekend.
Also in the lineup is former world champion Nia Ali of the United States, her fellow Americans Alaysha Johnson and Tonea Marshall and Jamaican Megan Tapper who has had some fierce battles with Charlton over the years. They are just some of the top athletic stars who will be competing in Doha this Friday.
For the world's best track and field athletes, Doha will be just the starting point of a season-long campaign in athletics' premier one-day meets.
In a journey spanning four continents and 14 cities, athletes compete for points, all gearing up for qualification for the Diamond League Final, the Prefontaine Classic,
September 16-17, in
Eugene.
Out of the 13 qualifying meets between May and September, a total of 10 will be held in Europe. A couple are in Asia and the other one is in northern Africa. For the Diamond League Final, many athletes will return to the stadium in which they won medals, or qualified for the finals, at the 2022 world championships. All 32 Wanda Diamond League champions will be crowned at Hayward Field in two days of non-stop action across every single discipline.
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