2022 promises to be a thrilling year in the high jump, as 2021 Diamond League champions look to defend their titles against a wave of high-class competition.
Tamberi won the Diamond Trophy for the first time last season, ending his astonishing journey from operation table to Olympic glory with a sparkling epilogue in Zurich.
Perennial champion Mariya Lasitskene, meanwhile, launched an incredible comeback against rising star Yaroslava Mahuchikh to claim her fifth title in one of the most thrilling high jump competitions in Diamond League history.
Both will be out to make history again in 2022, with Tamberi able to compete in Doha, Birmingham, Rome, Shanghai, Monaco and Lausanne, and Lasitskene eyeing potential appearances in Eugene, Rabat, Paris, Stockholm, Shenzhen and Brussels.
Tamberi and Lasitskene also both feature in the top five high jumpers in Diamond League history.
Lastiskene’s 2.06m jump in Lausanne in 2017 is still an unbeaten Diamond League record, and Tamberi’s 2.39 effort on a fateful night in Monaco in 2016 is the fourth-highest ever in the men’s event.
WATCH: Top five men’s and women’s high jumpers in Diamond League history.
Mahuchikh, the new pretender to Lasitskene’s throne, also makes the women’s top five with her 2.03m in Stockholm last July, a mark which Croatian legend Blanka Vlasic and Chaunte Lowe both cleared in Rome during the very first Diamond League season in 2010.
Lasitskene herself has gone higher than 2.03m on numerous occasions, but Anna Chicherova is the only other athlete who has managed to do so, clearing 2.05m in Brussels in what was, until 2017, the series record.
Tamberi’s 2.39m from Monaco puts him one spot ahead of Guowei Zhang in the all-time list, the Chinese star having cleared 2.38m in Eugene during his standout Diamond League season in 2015.
Seasoned campaigner Andriy Protsenko takes third place with a 2.40m in Lausanne back in 2014, while his fellow Ukrainian Bogdan Bondarenko can boast of being the second highest jumper in Diamond League history. His 2.42m effort in the last ever Diamond League meeting New York was a highlight of his thrilling, season-long battle with Mutaz Barshim in 2014.
It was Barshim, of course, who triumphed in the end that year, clearing a whopping 2.43m in Brussels to leave himself just two centimetres off the world record and claim the first of his three Diamond Trophies so far.