Track and Field: With Only a Month Left for Diamond League, a Look at the League’s Longest Standing 13-Year-Old Record

After a dramatic ending to the 2023 Diamond League in Eugene, track and field athletes are warming up for another. The 2024 Wanda Diamond League will blow its bugle in Xiamen on April 20, 2024. Over 14 series meetings, the athletes will collect points to battle it out at the September finals. The last DL season was nothing less than phenomenal as the track jewels set 13 records over 6 months. Several long-standing records broke seamlessly, but one remained untouched.

The youngest 100m World champion in history, Yohan Blake, was a young buck of 22 years when he stepped foot at the 2011 IAAF Diamond League. The 100m specialist was not one of the top seeds for the 200m. But what happened at that Diamond League has impacted the track world significantly.

Track and field record unmatched for 13 years

At the 2009 World Championships, the Jamaican speedster was struck out from the relay roster after a drug test failure. But his 2011 Diamond League performance blew the internet so much that the three-month suspension incident faded away in a jiffy. Clocking in at 19.26s in the 200m dash, the 34-year-old flew to victory quite unexpectedly. But his record is still glittery without a single scratch. According to history, this is the longest-standing DL record.

In not of one of his strongest suits, the 2012 Summer Games relay gold medalist defied all odds to claim the win. “It was really cold on that day. “I started slow because I was so nervous”, he said in an interview. But a few seconds into the race, he started to ‘fly’, culminating in a stunning race time. “I didn’t believe it myself”. Now, as another Diamond League is nearing, there’s another track icon who’s just a fraction away from besting it.

Noah Lyles can be the next record-holder

Coming as close to breaking the long-standing time, Noah Lyles is just 0.3s away from 19.26s. The 5x Diamond League champion has tried his absolute best six times in three years. Clocking in at 19.46s at the 2022 Monaco Diamond League, the 26-year-old can give it a shot this year as well. But track and field prodigy Yohan Blake does not hold just one record.

In the 100m dash, he holds the DL series record, which he set in 2012 Lausanne. With a total of 17 golds in his purse, the 34-year-old will try to attempt another Olympics since his 2020 one was disappointing. In 2020, for the first time in 20 years in history, no Jamaican man secured a seat at the Olympics final. Hopefully, that’s not the case this year.

READ MORE: Noah Lyles’s Coach Makes Bold Claim for 100M at Paris Olympics 2024