Where Kenyan stars will be chasing glory as Diamond League meetings kicks off
Athletics
By
Stephen Rutto
| May 06, 2026
Shanghai/Keqiao is the opening leg of the 2026 Wanda Diamond League series, a tour that will cross four continents and 15 cities en route to the two-day series final in Brussels on September 4-5.
Five-time Diamond League champion Faith Kipyegon will headline the opening leg as she returns to China for the second year in a row.
The triple Olympic champion will be competing in the 5,000m at the season opener set for Saturday 16.
Kipyegon will be testing her endurance as she prepares for the inaugural Ultimate Championship which will be run in Budapest in September.
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The four-time world champion has broken a world record in each of the past three Diamond League seasons, and the 5,000m is billed as her move to longer distances even as she maintains her 1,500m specialty.
The 5,000m will be an additional event in Keqiao, meaning Kipyegon will not earn points for the Diamond League standings.
Last year, Kipyegon fell short of a 1000m world record in her season opener at the Diamond League meeting in Xiamen.
The 32-year-old star is gunning for a historic sixth title in the athletics premier one-day series.
Since 2023, she has set five new world records across three different disciplines in four different Diamond League cities.
Kipyegon will still be expected to feature in Eugene and Monaco later in the season.
In Monaco, where she smashed the Mile world record in 2023, Kipyegon will line up in the women’s 3,000m.
Olympic champion Winfred Yavi and world champion Faith Cherotich will resume one of athletics’ most thrilling rivalries when they meet in the women’s 3,000m steeplechase at the second Wanda Diamond League meeting of the season in Xiamen on May 23.
The duo has dominated the steeplechase in recent years, picking up three Diamond League titles and 12 Diamond League wins between them in the last three seasons.
Xiamen will be their 12th meeting on the Diamond League stage in a longstanding rivalry which has thrown up some classic races in recent years.
Cherotich shocked Yavi at the Diamond League Final in Brussels in 2024 before beating her again in two dramatic contests in Doha and Oslo last season.
Emmanuel Wanyonyi, meanwhile, will be out to avenge his shock defeat in Rabat last year, when he finished third behind Tshepiso Masalela of Botswana and Great Britain’s Max Burgin.
The reigning Olympic and world champion is targeting his fourth career win at the Moroccan meeting this year, as he also sets his sights on a fourth successive Diamond League title.
Rabat is the third leg of the 2026 Wanda Diamond League.
The Prefontaine Classic will reunite the entire women’s 800m podium from last year’s World Athletics Championships in Tokyo, with Lilian Odira taking on Great Britain’s Georgia Hunter compatriot Bell and Keely Hodgkinson at the Eugene leg of the 2026 Wanda Diamond League on July 4.
Odira, who is the reigning world champion is now ranked number four in the world and will be out to pick up her first ever Diamond League win in 2026.
Odira finished second at the Lausanne Diamond League meet before going on to shock Hodgkinson in the 800m final at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo.