It has been a long wait. But several months - and a few highly successful exhibition events later - we are finally there: this Friday, Monaco will host the first competitive Wanda Diamond League meeting of 2020.
The entry lists are out, the first athletes have arrived in Monaco, and the finishing touches are being put on all the careful safety measures at the Stade Louis II. The 2020 season is officially in the blocks, with the starting gun primed to fire at 19.40 local time (GMT+2) on Friday evening.
Meeting Herculis, meanwhile, has prepared a stellar line-up of athletics superstars well befitting of the first major Diamond League event since the coronavirus pandemic hit in March.
It is a line-up which includes a host of Diamond League champions, a handful of world record holders and a dozen reigning world champions, including Karsten Warholm, Donovan Brazier, Yulimar Rojas and Katharina Johnson-Thompson.
So from brotherly battles to intercontinental showdowns, here's what to look forward to in Monaco.
Brothers in the blocks
Perhaps the stand-out star of a star-studded line-up, Noah Lyles will make his first appearance in Monaco since he broke the 200m meeting record here in 2018.
The reigning world and double Diamond League champion lines up in the 200m again this time around, with competition from the likes of Ramil Guliyev, Christophe Lemaitre and his own little brother.
Josephus Lyles, a year younger than his more decorated sibling, makes just his third Diamond League appearance ever in Monaco.
World record breakers
Meeting Herculis has been a veritable factory of world records in recent years, with three new all-time bests set at the Stade Louis II in the last five seasons.
Two of those have come in the last two years, with Beatrice Chepkoech breaking the women's 3000m steeplechase world record in 2018 and Sifan Hassan doing the same in the women's mile a year later.
On Friday, Hassan and Chepkoech will go head to head in the women's 5000m, and while another world record may be too much to ask for, we can expect fireworks as the two history-makers face fellow long-distance superstar and reigning world champion Hellen Obiri.
Duplantis v Kendricks
Another athlete who can now call himself the greatest ever is Mondo Duplantis, who established himself as new king of the pole vault back in February, setting a new world record of 6.18m just weeks before the pandemic hit.
Duplantis has shone in the various exhibition events since, claiming video-link victories in both the Ultimate Garden Clash and Oslo's Impossible Games.
Yet he faces his first test proper as the undisputed man to beat on Friday, as he goes pole to pole on the same runway with reigning world and Diamond League champion Sam Kendricks.
Middle-distance magic
One of the surprises of the season in 2019, Uganda's Halimah Nakaayi heads into this campaign as reigning world champion in the women's 800m, and will be looking to confirm her place among the elite with only a second ever win on the Diamond League circuit.
Nakaayi faces a stern test in the 1500m this Friday, as she takes on two-time Diamond League champion Laura Muir and reigning Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon.
The men's 1500m is an equally mouth-watering prospect, as world champion Timothy Cheruiyot reprises his duel with Norway's Ingebrigtsen brothers, following their cross-continental team battle at the Oslo Impossible Games in June.
Sprint sensations
Ivorian star Marie-Josée Ta Lou stormed to victory in the 100m in Monaco two years ago, and she is out to repeat the feat this year in a race which will bring some of the finest sprinters from three different continents to the Stade Louis II track.
Ta Lou will be flying the flag for Africa, while the USA's Aleia Hobbs returns to the circuit after claiming ehr first Diamond League victory in Shanghai last year. The likes of Switzerland's Mujinga Kambundji and Germany's Gina Lückenkemper, meanwhile, will be hoping for "home" advantage on European soil.
