Armand Duplantis kicks off Diamond League season in China

PARIS – Serial world record-setter Armand Duplantis will be on hand to kick off this season’s Diamond League series when he takes to the pole vault runway at the Shanghai/Keqiao meet on May 16.

The US-born Swede will be joined by Kenya’s middle-distance queen Faith Kipyegon, Norway’s hurdles king Karsten Warholm, Botswana’s Olympic 200m champion Letsile Tebogo and Nigerian 100m hurdler Tobi Amusan in what promises to be a high-octane start to the 15-meet series.

The 2026 Diamond League crosses four continents and 15 cities en route to the two-day series final in Brussels on Sept 4 and 5.

With no Olympic Games or world championships in 2026, the Diamond League, which has a total prize-money pool of US$9.24 million (S$11.82 million), will also act as a perfect run-up to World Athletics’ inaugural season-ending Ultimate Championships in Budapest from Sept 11 to 13.

“With competitors from around 100 countries and an ever-growing fan base on all seven continents, the Diamond League is a truly global series which delivers reliable, championship-level track and field competitions to athletes and fans across the world,” said Diamond League chief executive Petr Stastny.

“In the coming years, the series will remain on the cutting edge of innovation in athlete services and fan engagement, while continuing to provide a crucial foundation for the sustainable growth of the sport as a whole.”

The Diamond League will also not have to contend with Michael Johnson’s Grand Slam Track series in 2026.

That ill-fated bid to reinvigorate interest in athletics outside Olympic years was curtailed in its inaugural 2025 season, with Grand Slam Track filing for bankruptcy in December 2025 with millions owed to athletes.

All eyes in China will be on Duplantis, who will open his outdoor season in a loaded pole vault field that includes Greece’s Emmanouil Karalis, who moved to second on the world all-time list in February with a 6.17m clearance in Athens.

The field also includes two-time world champion Sam Kendricks of the US and two-time world championship bronze medallist Kurtis Marschall of Australia.

Duplantis, unbeaten since 2023, set his 15th pole vault world record earlier in 2026, clearing 6.31m in Sweden.

The two-time Olympic gold medallist and three-time world champion has said he is going for a new world record when the Diamond League series rolls round to Monaco, where he has relocated to live.

“I feel that a world record is needed and it would be fantastic if I was able to do that here,” the 26-year-old said of his plans for Monaco.

He has also said that he is wary of the challenge posed by Karalis.

“He’s a great competitor; he shows up really well when he needs to,” Duplantis said in March, as quoted by the Olympics website.

“He’s definitely pushing himself to a whole other level – also now, clearly. It’s really fun. I think it’s really exciting for the sport.

“It’s better for me; it pushes me. And hopefully people can be more interested in pole vault, because that’s the event that I love. And maybe the attention doesn’t have to be on me.”

Whenever Duplantis is in a meet, however, his excellence is never far from shining through and only the bravest of punters would bet against him winning in China, while a world-record bid also never seems that too far away, form and fitness notwithstanding.

While the likes of Duplantis, Kipyegon, Warholm and American Olympic 100m champion Noah Lyles have for many seasons been the standout names, much is expected from first-time world champion Jamaican Oblique Seville and American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, who both starred on the Diamond League circuit before shining in the sprints in Tokyo in 2025. AFP