If one thing has been guaranteed on the Wanda Diamond League circuit in recent years, it’s world records. And 2025 was no exception.
This season saw five of the greatest performances in athletics history, with three official world records and two world best performances over the course of 15 Wanda Diamond League meetings.
Here’s a look back at every world record in 2025.
Xiamen: Warholm bursts out of the blocks
2025 was the year in which Karsten Warholm finally regained the Diamond League title, with the 400m hurdles world record holder getting his hands on the Diamond Trophy for the first time since 2021.
His title-winning form was apparent right from the start of the season, as the Norwegian burst out of the blocks with the fastest 300m hurdles time ever at the season opener in Xiamen.
A new innovation introduced at the elite level only this year,the 300m hurdles was a fresh challenge for many of the world’s best hurdlers.
Yet Warholm proved equal to the challenge at the Egret Stadium, clocking a new record of 33.05 to get his Diamond League campaign off to a winning start.
“I was a little bit surprised by how easy my legs were feeling off the last bend,” he said. “Of course you feel it a little bit in the end, but I managed to really push in the last 45 metres. This shows that the speed is there and the speed over the hurdles is there.”
Oslo: Warholm breaks 33 seconds
Having shown his speed at the start of the season in China, Warholm’s next big test came on home soil at the Bislett Games in Oslo in June.
A home Diamond League meeting meant double pressure for Warholm, who had suffered a surprise defeat to Alison Dos Santos at the Bislett Stadium a year before.
This time around, he not only went up against reigning Diamond League champion Dos Santos, but also Olympic champion Rai Benjamin.
It was the first ever meeting of the three fastest men in history over 300m hurdles, and it was Warholm who came out on top.
In front of an adoring home crowd, the Norwegian raced to another world best, this time posting 32.67 to become the first man ever to go below 33 seconds in the discipline.
“The race went well although I was rather worried with how much Rai was closing on me,” he said. “But I knew I could push on over the last hurdle to home.”
Stockholm: Duplantis soars in Stockholm
If there is one athlete who knows what it takes to break a world record, it is Mondo Duplantis.
Sweden’s pole vault sensation has broken the world record 13 times in the last six years, taking the gold standard in his discipline from 6.16m to 6.29m.
A third of those world records have come at a Diamond League meeting, though none have been as special as the one he broke in Stockholm this season.
Though he had previously set world outdoor bests and Diamond League records in the Swedish capital, Duplantis had never before managed to break the world record in front of his home crowd.
That changed last June, when he soared over 6.28m at the very first attempt, sending the crowd at Stockholm’s 113-year-old Olympic Stadium into raptures.
“I feel full to the brim right now. I’ve got a lot of family here. The first time I jumped in this stadium when I was 11 years old, it was rainy and cold, and I jumped right under four metres – it was quite high for how young I was,” he said.
“I’m just going to enjoy this, enjoy the moment right now. There’s not much between me and 6.30m, technically. I’m just a perfect day away from it.”
Eugene: Chebet breaks the 14-minute mark
One of the standout performers in this year’s Diamond League campaign was Kenyan distance star Beatrice Chebet.
A double Olympic gold medallist in Paris last summer, Chebet picked up exactly where she left off with a string of extraordinary victories in the first half of the Diamond League season.
She opened her campaign with a 5000m meeting record in Xiamen and a 3000m African and Diamond League record of 8:11.96 in Rabat.
The 24-year-old then came within a whisker of breaking the 5000m world record in Rome, clocking 14:03.69 to fall just three seconds short of Gudaf Tsegay’s mark from the 2023 Wanda Diamond League Final in Eugene.
It seemed only a matter of time before Chebet would claim the throne, however. And fittingly, it was in Eugene that she finally did so.
At the Prefontaine Classic in early July, the Kenyan stormed to a flabbergasting 13:58.06, becoming the first woman in history to run five kilometres in less than 14 minutes.
“I’m so happy to become the first woman to run under 14 minutes,” said Chebet. “After Rome, I knew that I was capable of running a world record. I told myself, ‘if Faith Kipyegon is trying for a world record in Eugene, why not me too?'”
Eugene: Kipyegon makes it five
As Chebet noted, she wasn’t the only Kenyan chasing history in Eugene.
At the same meeting, all eyes were on her compatriot Faith Kipyegon, who was attacking her own world record in the women’s 1500m.
Coming off the back of her audacious attempt to become the first woman to run a four-minute mile, Kipyegon was on formidable form as she headed to Hayward Field in early July.
Expectations were high, and as so often, she didn’t disappoint, posting 3:48.68 to shave more than a third of a second off her previous world record, set at the 2024 Diamond League meeting in Paris.
It was the fifth time that Kipyegon had broken a world record at a Diamond League meeting in three years, and the third season in a row in which she had done so in the 1500m.
“I was preparing myself for something special, which was to run under four minutes in a mile and I think I pushed myself, getting better and better toward the 1500, so I knew it was possible to run under 3:49,” she said.
“I’m grateful to God that I made it today because I talked about it last week, and here I am breaking the world record.”
