Athletes to watch at the 2025 Brussels Diamond League
At the heart of the programme lies the women’s 100 metres, a race brimming with star power. From the USA come Sha’Carri Richardson, the reigning world champion and Olympic silver medallist, Melissa Jefferson-Wooden, whose breakout season has propelled her to the top of the world-leading list, and Maia McCoy, who has also run under 11 seconds twice this year.
Britain’s Daryll Neita, fourth in Paris, is equally determined to secure a place on a major podium. And with the late addition of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the Jamaican icon who has ruled sprinting for more than 15 years, the showdown has become unmissable. Fraser-Pryce’s Brussels meeting record of 10.72, set back in 2013, still endures, but Jefferson-Wooden’s blistering form suggests it may finally be under threat this year.
Other records are also firmly in play. Bahrain’s Winfred Yavi arrives in the Belgian capital targeting the mile steeplechase world record, a less familiar distance where World Athletics is experimenting with a shorter, faster twist on Yavi’s 3000m speciality. Having already come within a heartbeat of the 3000m world record, the Olympic champion now has the chance to make history over the mile.
Distance fans will also have one eye on Agnes Jebet Ngetich in the 5000m. The Kenyan was shoulder to shoulder with Beatrice Chebet when the latter broke the world record in Eugene and has been chasing history ever since.
Yet the excitement in Brussels extends far beyond the home straight. For Belgian fans, few sights will stir as much pride as seeing Nafi Thiam on home soil. A three-time Olympic champion in the heptathlon, she swaps the all-round test for the long jump pit in Belgium’s capital.
Hamish Kerr, the New Zealander who claimed high jump Olympic gold after a dramatic jump-off in Paris, will look to extend his podium streak against the very man he jumped off with in Paris, the USA’s Shelby McEwen. Kerr carries the season’s best of the field, having jumped 2.33m in Silesia just one week ago. But never count out Ukraine’s Oleh Doroshchuk, who delivered a 2.34m at the European indoor championships back in March.
In the discus, Rojé Stona arrives as the Olympic champion and as the man who pushed the event into new territory with his record-breaking 70-metre throw. Germany’s Yemisi Ogunleye in the shot put and Dominica’s Thea LaFond in the triple jump add further sparkle. And then there is Elien Vekemans, the Belgian pole vaulter who has made a habit of breaking her own national record this year (five times, to be precise) and may yet do so again with the likes of Katie Moon, Molly Caudery, and Sandi Morris pushing her higher.