The Wanda Diamond League Final returns to Zurich for the first time in three years this week, with the likes of Noah Lyles, Mondo Duplantis and Julien Alfred all chasing the Diamond Trophy.
It will be the 13th time that Weltklasse Zürich has hosted the final of athletics’ premier one-day series, more than any other meeting on the circuit.
From emotional farewells to odds-defying comebacks, the city has delivered some unforgettable moments down the years.
Here are six of the most memorable moments from the Diamond League Final in Zurich:
Farah’s farewell
When Mo Farah lined up for his last ever track race in 2017, he was already a six-time world champion and four-time Olympic gold medallist
Yet there was one major global title still missing from Farah’s collection: the Diamond Trophy.
The British long distance legend had enjoyed one of his most successful seasons in the Diamond League, taking victories in Eugene and Birmingham on the Road to the Final in the 5000m.
Yet he needed to overcome a ferociously strong field in Zurich that included the likes of Paul Chelimo, Yomif Kejelcha, Selemon Barega and Muktar Edris.
Farah was ahead by a nose at the final bend, but the American and the three Ethiopians were snapping at his heels.
As the pack approached the finish line, all five men were still in the running. Yet it was Farah who triumphed, dipping to win the photo finish as the rest tumbled to the ground in a tangle of legs.
It was one of the most dramatic finishes to a 5000m in athletics history, and a suitably gutsy performance for Farah to end his career. When he returned to the athlete hotel later that evening, the British star still had the Diamond Trophy clasped tightly to his chest.
Ibargüen does the double
Only a handful of athletes have ever won two Diamond Trophies in a single season. It’s an exclusive list which includes the likes of Noah Lyles, Allyson Felix, Shericka Jackson and Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
Yet only one athlete has ever won two Diamond League titles in two different cities in the space of 24 hours.
In 2018, the Diamond League Final took place over two days, with the first day in Zurich and the second in Brussels.
Most athletes appeared at only one of the two meetings, but for Colombian triple jump legend Caterine Ibargüen, that was not an option.
Already a four-time Diamond League champion in the women’s triple jump, Ibargüen had been competing impressively in both the triple and the long jump in 2018, and she wanted both Diamond Trophies.
On the Thursday, she leapt to her fifth triple jump title in Zurich, beating Shanieka Ricketts by just a single centimetre, becoming the joint most successful woman in Diamond League history and the only athlete ever to win two titles in two cities in two days.
Kipruto loses a shoe
Winning the Diamond League title is one thing. Winning it with only one shoe is quite another.
In 2018, Conseslus Kipruto came to Zurich hoping to win a third successive Diamond League title in the men’s 3000m steeplechase.
He not only did that: he delivered one of the most jaw-dropping performances in track and field history.
A lap and a half into the race, Kipruto was slotted in comfortably towards the head of the pack when disaster struck. The shoe on his left foot had suddenly come loose, and the Kenyan had no choice but to kick it off to keep his rhythm.
For any other athlete, any hope of winning a Diamond League Final against the best in the world would have ended there and then.
Not so for Kipruto, who battled on in defiance with one foot booted and the other bare.
Astonishingly, the Kenyan managed to keep the pace for another six minutes. And as the pack headed into the final lap, it was clear he still had an outside chance of winning.
The Letzigrund crowd could barely believe their eyes, and as Kipruto desperately tried to chase down Soufiane El Bakkali on the home straight, the stadium shook to its very foundations.
Just a few strides from the finish line, Kipruto edged past El Bakkali to cross the line in first and complete one of the most unlikely comebacks in Diamond League history.
Amusan’s African record
Before 2021, no African woman had ever won the Diamond League title in a sprint or hurdles discipline.
In 2021, Tobi Amusan changed that forever, winning the first of her three successive Diamond Trophies in the 100m hurdles.
The Nigerian star was just 24 when she turned up in Zurich for that year’s final and had never won a Diamond League race.
Yet she stormed to an incredible 12.42, setting a new African record and getting her hands on the Diamond Trophy for the very first time.
It proved to be the start of a golden era for Amusan, who went on the break the world record in Eugene the following year and win two more Diamond League titles in 2022 and 2023.
Kovacs’ series record
This year will not be the first time the Wanda Diamond League Final has taken place in front of the Zurich opera house.
After a successful debut in 2021, the series final returned to Sechseläutenplatz in 2022 and produced one of the most impressive performances in Diamond League history.
Joe Kovacs had not won the title in seven years when he entered the ring that evening, and he faced a stern test against the likes of Ryan Crouser and Tom Walsh.
Yet the US star showed all his experience with another performance for the ages in Zurich.
Having gone toe to toe with Crouser in the first round – both men launching 22.67m exactly – Kovacs delivered a killer blow in the second.
With a huge (and delightfully symmetrical) 23.23m, Kovacs put himself into an unbeatable position just a third of the way into the competition, smashing the Diamond League record in the process.
The record still stands today, and Kovacs will be among the favourites once again when he returns to the Sechseläutenplatz this Wednesday.
Fraser-Pryce strikes again
Few sprinters can or will ever get close to what Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce has achieved.
The Jamaican star is one of the sport’s greatest ever athletes with 10 world titles and eight Olympic medals.
Her Diamond League record also speaks for itself: with 25 individual wins and five Diamond League titles, she is the joint most successful track athlete in the series history.
In 2022, she headed to Zurich knowing that only the very best would be enough to win a fifth series title.
It was a time in which she and fellow Jamaicans Elaine Thompson-Herah and Shericka Jackson were repeatedly rewriting the history books in women’s sprinting.
Fraser-Pryce had just reasserted her status as the best in the world by winning gold at the World Athletics Championships in Eugene, and she backed that up with a similarly dominant performance in Zurich.
Up against the likes of Jackson and Marie-Josée Ta Lou, she stormed to a memorable 10.65, equalling the meeting record.
