When Joe Kovacs won his first Diamond League title at the tender age of 27 back in 2015, he might not have realised that it would be seven years before he got his hands on the iconic Diamond Trophy again.
Yet it proved to be worth the wait as the seasoned US shot put campaigner pulled out a string of unforgettable performances this season to become one of the most dominant athletes of the 2022 campaign and regain the Wanda Diamond League throne from his compatriot Ryan Crouser.
Kovacs began the season as he had finished 2021 - in the shadow of Olympic champion and reigning Diamond Trophy holder Crouser. As his fellow American launched a world leading 23.02m on home soil in Eugene, 33-year-old Kovacs had to make do with second place and a respectable season's best of 22.49m.
He got his first win on the board a week later in Rome, cruising to victory with 21.85m in Crouser's absence. Yet it would be Crouser who once again stole the limelight when the two men returned to Eugene for the World Athletics Championships in July, with Kovacs once again settling for silver as his compatriot smashed the championship record with 22.94m in the final.
From that moment on, however, it was all Kovacs. As the American went from strength to strength in the latter stages of the seaon, it became clear that victory in Rome had just been the start of an extraordinary Diamond League winning streak.
After another, non-points-scoring victory in Silesia, Kovacs sailed into the final in Lausanne, his second-round effort of 22.65m handing him a thumping victory over Crouser and revenge for the defeat in Oregon. He went one better at the street event at Brussels' fish market a week later, obliterating the rest of the field with a meeting record of 22.61m.
Not since the days of Reese Hoffa and Ryan Whiting had a single athlete dominated the men's shot put, a discipline which has for years been one of the most fiercely contested on the circuit. Kovacs' run of four back-to-back wins, meanwhile,was the longest since Christian Cantwell's five-win streak back in the inaugural Diamond League season in 2010.
By the time the Wanda Diamond League Final in Zurich rolled around, Kovacs was clear favourite to take the Diamond Trophy. He didn't disappoint, once again taking to the street event surroundings like a duck to water in rainy conditions on the Sechseläutenplatz. Before the heavens opened, Kovacs had already launched a second-round monster of 23.23m, breaking Crouser's Diamond League record from the previous season and putting his victory beyond any reasonable doubt before the competition had even got going.
After hoisting his Diamond Trophy into the air, the American looked ahead to what he believes will be an even more impressive year for the men's shot put next season.
"We keep making this sport better – Ryan is pushing it, I am pushing it, Tom Walsh is coming back," he said. "If you want to be good you have to keep getting better all the time. As much as this is annoying, as a competitor, as it makes it harder, it makes the sport better. And I am super thankful for that. I know that Ryan will throw further so I will have to throw even further next year."