IAAF Diamond League

A new circuit of elite athletics meetings known as the “IAAF Diamond League” began this year. The IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) intends the new Diamond League to enhance the worldwide appeal of athletics with fixtures outside Europe, in contrast to the Golden League of 6 meetings that it replaces, which has run annually since 1998.

The biggest stars of the sport have been engaged with centralised contracts to ensure that the best athletes take part. Athletes from 32 different athletics events compete with each event receiving the same prize money from a total fund of $416,000 per meeting.

The BBC has coverage via the 'red button' of the meeting tonight (9-11pm) at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Oregon where amongst other events Chris Solinsky on home turf will take on a world class field that includes world leader (12:51:21) Eliud Kipchoge in the 5000m.

The remaining meetings are:

Lausanne (SUI) 08th July
Gateshead (GBR) 10th July (British Grand Prix)
Paris (FRA) 16th July
Monaco (MON) 22nd July
Stockholm (SWE) 6th August
London (GBR) 13th August (London Grand Prix -Crystal Palace)
Zurich (SUI) 19th August
Brussels (BEL) 27th August

At next weekends British Grand Prix in Gateshead Chris Thompson is expected to chase the European Championship qualifying 'A' standard of 13:20:00 in a 5000m race which is to include fellow Brits Mo Farah and Andy Vernon, as well as Kipchoge, Vincent Chepkok, Imane Merga and 2010 World Cross champion Joseph Ebuya. The meeting will be televised live on BBC2 at 4:30pm.

Video of Chris Thompson 3rd UK all-time 10,000m/Chris Solinsky USA record

There is a great video online here of the amazing 10,000m at the 2010 Payton Jordan Invitational meeting at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California last month, where american Chris Solinsky ran a time of 26:59.60 to break the American Record by 13 seconds, in the same race that AFD athlete Chris Thompson ran 27:29.61 to go to 3rd on the UK all-time ranking.

Simply stunning running, and a very entertaining video with some fantastically excited but knowledgeable commentary too.

In an interview following todays UK Championship 5000m and Euro Trials, Thompson indicated that like Mo Farah, he may double up the 5000 and 10,000 at the European Championships next month in Barcelona. The BBC coveage of this weekends UK Champs action, including the womens 1500m final on day one, and Chris Thompson in the mens 5000m final on day two is available on the BBC iPlayer for the next 7 days.