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The Rome Diamond League meeting, named the Golden Gala, will be run on Friday, August 30th at the historic Stadio Olimpico. The venue was built in 1927 and renovated and expanded several times, most notably for the 1960 Rome Olympic Games and again for the 1990 FIFA World Cup. The stadium now seats up to 100,000 spectators. Only if the hallowed walls could talk.

While a Diamond League meet is not to the scale of an Olympics or World Cup, it is the top-tier professional track series in the world, and it is where the Olympians go to race. A number of Paris Olympians will be in the building on Friday, including 200-metre gold medallist Letsile Tebogo of Botswana. He will be racing in the main event against seven potential sub-10-second sprinters.

Men’s 100 metre sprint

This race features not only Tebogo, the event has Italian Marcell Jacobs who earned gold in Tokyo toeing the line. Also, Americans Christian Coleman, Fred Kerley and Kenyan Ferdinand Omanyala.

Tebogo may have earned gold in the 200m sprint but finished sixth in the 100m. He brings to the start line a personal best of 9.86 seconds. Fred Kerley took the bronze medal in Paris and holds the third-fastest seasonal best among the starters with his 9.81-second run. The fastest starter this season is Jamaican Kishane Thompson with his 9.77-second sprint performance from June 28 at the National Stadium in Kingston run during the national championships and Paris Olympic Trials. Thompson took silver in Paris virtually tying Noah Lyles at 9.79.

While Omanyala did not make the final in Paris, he ran the same time in 2024 of 9.79 seconds. Rounding out the field will be Great Britain’s Jeremiah Azu and Abdul Hakeem Sani Brown who represents Japan.

Expect Italian Jacobs — barring his hamstring issues that come and go — to make a good go for the win in front of his fans. But make no mistake Omanyala wants redemption.

Women’s 1500m

Nine of the top eleven 1500 metre times in history have been run over the past three years. One of them is by Australian Jessica Hull bringing her personal best to the line of 3:50.83. With that run, she earned the Paris Olympic silver medal and the Australian and Oceania area records. She is the fourth-fastest runner in 1500m history with the eighth-fastest time. Four of the performances ahead of her are from Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon.

What can be shared about Faith Kipyegon that has not already been said? She is the world record holder with her 3:49.04 performance from the July 7 Paris Diamond League meet. The 30-year-old is the three-time defending Olympic champion in the event. She won gold in Rio in 2016, Tokyo in 2021 and Paris in 2024. She is a four-time World champion in the 1500m event and one-time World champion in the 5000m.

Also on the start line will be Kenyan Nelly Chepchirchir with her personal best of 3:56.72. Ethiopian Frewenyi Hailu brings a 3:55.28 to the line, which she ran this year back in February in Toruń, Poland. The 23-year-old finished fourth in both the Tokyo Olympic Games and the 2022 Eugene World Athletics Championships. In March, she won gold at the World Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland.

The most interesting will be Birke Haylom from Ethiopia. The 18-year-old ran 3:53.22 in Xiamen, China in April. She is on the rise having won the U20 World Athletics Championships as a 16-year-old and owns the U20 World record in the 5000m having run as fast as 14:23.71 at the Eugene edition of the Diamond League this year. At the Bislett Games in Oslo she took the World U20 record in the mile clocking up a stunning 4:17.13 performance.

Is Birke Haylom the next Faith Kipyegon? She appears to be well on her way to that position.

Full Schedule

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