The Diamond League history books were repeatedly rewritten in 2026, as 13 athletes set new series records.
A total of 17 new Diamond League records were set in the course of the 2026 campaign, with at least one falling in two of every three meetings.
Several records were broken on more than one occasion, as rivals like Chase Jackson and Jessica Schilder vied for supremacy in the field while Busang Collen Kebinatshipi and Audrey Werro dominated on the track.
The 17 series records included four world records, which can be viewed in full here:
Explosive start
The world’s best started the season as they meant to go on, with three Diamond League records falling in the opening two meetings in China.
Jessica Schilder launched the biggest throw for 14 years with 21.09m in the women’s shot put at the season opener in Keqiao, before Yan Ziyi and Masai Russell followed suit in Xiamen a week later.
Chinese teenager Yan delighted the home crowd with the second-furthest throw in history in the javelin, while Russell came just 0.02 seconds short of the world record with her 12.14 in the 100m hurdles.
Wonderful Werro
Audrey Werro’s rise to the top of the women’s 800m was one of the stories of 2026, and it all began in Stockholm when the Swiss stormed to a stunning 1:53.98 to beat Keely Hodgkinson and become the third-fastest woman in history.
She went even faster a few weeks later in Paris, shaving a further 0.18 seconds off her own Diamond League record to cement her status as the new world number one.
Paris hat-trick
Werro wasn’t the only athlete to make Diamond League history in Paris: the Stade Charléty saw a hat-trick of series records in 2026.
The other two both fell in the 400m, where Busang Collen Kebinatshipi and Marileidy Paulino made their first steps towards the Diamond League title.
Paulino clocked 48.48 in the women’s race, while Kebinatshipi raced to 43.54 in the men’s – the first of three series records for the Botswana star in 2026.
First world record
The Diamond League records kept falling as the Road to the Final began to heat up in July.
Ethan Katzberg set a series best in the men’s hammer throw in Eugene, before the famously fast track of the Stade Louis II delivered its usual fireworks in Monaco.
Kebinatshipi trimmed another tenth of a second off his record with 43.44 in the men’s 400m, but it was Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi who stole the show, breaking the first world record of the season with 2:11.83 in the men’s 1000m.
Shock in London
It took just a week for the next world record to fall, as Josh Kerr made history in the men’s mile in front of his home crowd in London.
Shortly before Kerr’s heroics, the USA’s Cierra Jackson had been reduced to tears after she threw 71.72m to beat Valarie Sion, inflicting a first defeat in three years on the Olympic and world champion and stealing her Diamond League record in the process.
The men’s discus record fell just weeks later, with Lithuania’s Mykolas Alekna launching a huge 72.58m in Silesia.
Final flourish
As the world’s best athletes hit their peak towards the end of the season, the 2026 campaign ended with two world records and two series records at the final two meetings.
Zurich saw back-to-back world records in the space of 40 minutes, as Alison Dos Santos clocked 45.80 in the men’s 400m hurdles and Masai Russell raced to 12.09 in the women’s 100m hurdles.
A week later at the Wanda Diamond League Final in Brussels, both Kebinatshipi and Chase Jackson stormed to the title in style with a series record.
Jackson finally won her season-long battle with Schilder in the shot put, throwing 21.14 to add five centimetres to the Dutch star’s Diamond League record at the season opener.
Kebinatshipi raced to a breathtaking 43.40 in the men’s 400m, breaking into the top five of all time and moving ever closer to Wayde Van Niekerk’s world record.
