"VAN" (Sports Desk - 12.05.2025) :: As the Road to the Final touches down in Doha this week, the world's biggest stars continue to plot their 2025 Wanda Diamond League campaigns.
This week has seen a flurry of big-name announcements, including a returning sprint legend, a historic double-clash in the hurdles and a Diamond League debut for one of the sport's most exciting young talents.
Fraser-Pryce returns to Doha
All eyes will be on Jamaican sprint legend Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in Doha next Friday, as she eyes a first Diamond League win since 2022 in the women's 100m.
The most decorated sprinter in history, Fraser-Pryce has won on previous appearances in Doha in 2021 and 2014.
She joins a star-studded line-up at the Qatar Sports Club, which also includes Botswana's 200m Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo and Indian javelin star Neeraj Chopra.
Gout Gout enters the stage
One of athletics' most exciting young talents will make his debut on the Diamond League stage in Monaco on July 11.
Australian teenager Gout Gout has earned comparisons with a young Usain Bolt with his extraordinary performances in recent months, and was crowned Australian champion in the 100m and 200m in April.
Gout will take his first steps on the global stage when he competes in an U23 200m during the pre-programme in Monaco.
Warholm v Benjamin v Dos Santos
When Karsten Warholm, Rai Benjamin and Alison Dos Santos met at the Diamond League in Monaco last summer, it was a rare clash between the three fastest 400m hurdlers in history.
A year later, the three men are shaping up for not one, but two Diamond League head-to-heads in the space of a weekend.
World record holder Warholm, Olympic champion Benjamin and reigning Diamond League champion Dos Santos will meet in the 300m hurdles in Oslo on June 12, before facing each other again over the full lap in Stockholm three days later.
Olympic champions in Rabat
Once Doha is done, attention will turn to the fourth meeting of the season in Rabat on May 25.
The line-up for the African leg of the Road to the Final is already beginning to sparkle, with multiple Olympic champions in action.
400m hurdles ace Femke Bol launches her campaign in Rabat, while Letsile Tebogo will run his first 200m of the season after 100m appearances in Xiamen and Keqiao.
Kenyan 800m star Emmanuel Wanyonyi, 5000m champion Beatrice Chebet and New Zealand high jumper Hamish Kerr complete the array of Paris gold medallists.
Kipyegon and Duplantis march on
World record breakers Faith Kipyegon and Mondo Duplantis both made winning starts to their Diamond League seasons in Xiamen last month, and both will be back in action in the coming weeks.
Kipyegon will headline the women's 1500m in Eugene on July 5, while Duplantis makes his next appearance in the men's pole vault at the Bislett Games in Oslo on June 12.
Olympic and WDL champions in the field
Duplantis is not the only field star who has signed up for further Diamond League meetings this week.
Gianmarco Tamberi and Mutaz Essa Barshim will be reunited in the men's high jump in Silesia in August, while Italian star and Diamond League champion Leonardo Fabbri takes on Joe Kovacs and Tom Walsh in the men's shot put on home soil in Rome on June 6.
Stockholm sees two Olympic champions take on fearsome fields, with Roje Stona meeting Matthew Denny and Daniel Stahl in the discus, and Tara Davis-Woodhall facing Malaika Mihambo in the long jump.
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