Circle 2 May in red: Rabat Prince Moulay Abdellah Stadium will ignite the 16-meet series at 19:00 local, with Femke Bol opening her 400 m hurdles season in lane 5 and Marcell Jacobs racing the 100 m straight into a Moroccan twilight forecast at 22 °C. Book the €25 east-stand tickets now–they sold out in 38 min last year.
From there the calendar rips through twelve countries in 119 days, peaks in Zürich Weltklasse final on 11 September, and squeezes two new stops–Lausanne Pontaise on 28 June and Los Angeles’ Drake Stadium on 3 August–between the traditional powerhouses. The tight 21-day Tokyo–Shanghai–Eugene swing (15 Aug → 5 Sep → 25 Aug) forces athletes to choose between Asian cash and American altitude; expect scratches and surprise winners.
Record-chasers should target Eugene Hayward Field on 25 August: the 1500 m men race starts at 10:05 Pacific to dodge heat, the steeplechase waterfalls into lane 2 to exploit the renovated bank, and Nike next-gen Mondo rails sit 3 mm lower–perfect for sub-3:46 attempts. Last year pacing lights malfunctioned; 2026 brings a military-grade laser system tested at the U.S. Air Force Academy, so sub-12:40 in the 5 000 m is realistic.
If you need a sprint showdown, Paris on 6 July delivers the only 200 m-400 m double in the series. Erriyon Knighton and Marileidy Paulino already confirmed; heat sheets drop 48 h before, so grab a €9 day-pass and hop Metro 12 to St-Denis. Seats in the north curve, section N, catch the 200 m exit at 70 m–exactly where last year winning margin was 0.003 s.
Field-event fans: Stockholm Ullevi on 30 August hosts the first-ever Diamond League pole-vault final under floodlights at 21:15 local. Mondo Duplantis requested a 5 cm bar-rise increment above 6.20 m to save energy; organizers agreed, so bring a jacket–Swedish evenings drop to 14 °C and the runway will be quick.
Tickets go public 30 October at 10:00 CET via each meet local site; expect the €35 day-pass tier to vanish within two hours. Set calendar alerts, open three browser tabs, and use mobile pay–last year 42 % of buyers lost seats during card verification delays. For travel packages that bundle red-eye flights and 4-star hotels under €550, https://xsportfeed.life/articles/cowboys-giants-and-eagles-could-battle-over-browns-100-million-cut-and-more.html lists aggregator codes that slash another €60 off the total.
Stream globally on Discovery+ Europe and ESPN+ Americas; both apps now carry multi-angle field-event feeds and athlete biometric overlays. Download the meet-specific audio–Norwegian commentary for Oslo, Jamaican patois for Kingston–to catch split times the international feed skips.
Race-by-Race Calendar & Broadcast Windows
Set three alarms for 9 May: Doha Khalifa Stadium fires the 2026 opener at 18:30 AST, NBC-Peacock streams live from 11:00 a.m. ET, and the women 100 m hurdles final airs 12:04 p.m. sharp–miss it and you’ll replay it on social before lunch.
Fly to Eugene on 25 May. Hayward new east grandstand packs 14,300; the Prefontaine Classic women pole-vault launches 13:05 PDT, ESPN2 cuts in at 1 p.m. PT. If you’re in Europe, Eurovision Sport carries every attempt without commentary–perfect for second-screen stats.
- 9 Aug – London, Crystal Palace, 19:05 BST, BBC One/iPlayer
- 16 Aug – Paris, Stade de France, 20:00 CEST, France 2/3
- 28 Aug – Shanghai, 19:15 CST, CCTV5 & Migu 4K HDR
- 4 Sept – Zurich, 20:10 CEST, SRF zwei & ZDF
Book 12–14 Sept for Brussels. The Memorial Van Damme swaps to a Friday-night finale; men 5 000 m starts 20:45, Sporza/RTBF geoblock expires after 24 h so download the VRT NU app before boarding the Eurostar.
Stack the relays: each meet airs a 4×400 mixed at 45 min in, perfect for bathroom breaks. Add the free World Athletics YouTube channel–every field event streams live with auto-archives, so you can clip Duplantis’ 6.27 m attempt and loop it until the next stop.
14-meet timeline from April to September with local start lists
Book your April 24 weekend in Doha: men pole vault fires off at 17:35 local, followed at 18:10 by the women 100 m hurdles where Camacho-Quinn, Williams and the home star Bassem Hemeida share the same heat sheet. Friday Khalifa sun cools to 26 °C by start time, so pick a west-stand seat to avoid glare on the back straight.
| Meet | City | Date | Local start lists drop |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Doha | 24 Apr | 21 Mar, 12:00 AST |
| 2 | Xiamen | 10 May | 02 Apr, 11:00 CST |
| 3 | Eugene | 24 May | 18 Apr, 09:00 PDT |
| 4 | Rabat | 07 Jun | 01 May, 18:00 WEST |
| 5 | Rome | 19 Jun | 15 May, 14:00 CEST |
| 6 | Oslo | 26 Jun | 20 May, 10:00 CEST |
| 7 | Paris | 03 Jul | 28 May, 13:00 CEST |
| 8 | London | 20 Jul | 14 Jun, 11:00 BST |
| 9 | Monaco | 25 Jul | 19 Jun, 15:00 CEST |
| 10 | Lausanne | 29 Aug | 25 Jul, 12:00 CEST |
| 11 | Zürich | 03 Sep | 30 Jul, 14:00 CEST |
| 12 | Brussels | 05 Sep | 01 Aug, 13:00 CEST |
| 13 | Final: Zurich | 11 Sep | 07 Aug, 14:00 CEST |
| 14 | Final: Brussels | 13 Sep | 09 Aug, 13:00 CEST |
Xiamen May 10 evening card lists the women 400 m hurdles at 19:20 local; the start list closes 48 h earlier, so set a phone alert for 19:20 CST on May 8. Ferry traffic from the island drops after 21:00–grab the 22:30 boat back to the mainland to beat the taxi queue that triples when the steeplechase ends.
Oslo Bislett night, 26 June, posts the men 1500 m at 20:42 local; Jakob Ingebrigtsen usually runs the second heat to chase the European record attempt, so check the heat sheet at 10:00 CEST on 20 May when ticket sales open–grandstand section G sells out in 11 minutes. Bring a light jacket; the 60 °C tunnel under the stand warms up athletes but fans still feel the 14 °C fjord breeze.
By 3 July in Paris the Stade Charléty lists 12 events across two hours; the women long-jump runway sits five metres closer to the home straight than in 2024, so seats 104-107 in the south curve give the best sight-line to the board. Entry lists lock at 13:00 CEST on 28 May; if Malaika Mihambo name appears, expect the schedule to shuffle–field events bump back five minutes to fit the broadcast window.
TV/streaming slots for USA, UK, Japan, Kenya, and pan-Euro feeds
USA viewers catch every Diamond League 2026 meeting live on NBC Peacock Premium; the $5.99 plan streams heats at 13:00 ET and finals at 20:00 ET the same day. NBC proper airs a 90-minute highlight block every Sunday 14:30–16:00 ET, so set the DVR if you only want medal races.
UK rights stay with BBC iPlayer and remain free-to-air. Each two-hour session drops at 19:00 BST on the red button, then a condensed 60-minute cut lands on BBC Two at 22:00. Red-button replays stay up for 30 days, so late-shift workers can still binge the 100 m final on Tuesday lunch break.
Japan broadcast window shifted to 07:00–09:30 JST on NHK G, matching the European afternoon start. Abema streams the same feed ad-free and lets you rewind 30 min; a ¥960 monthly pass unlocks multi-angle field-event cams. If you miss the live slot, NHK 4K digest airs that night at 23:00.
Kenya KTN Home shows Saturday meets on a one-hour delay starting 18:30 EAT, but full sessions stream free on the KTN News YouTube channel at 16:00. Safaricom subscribers get zero-rated data for the stream, so rural 3G users can watch without touching their bundles.
Across Europe, Eurosport 2 carries every session live and in English; local language commentary tracks (German, French, Spanish, Italian) toggle via the red button on most cable boxes. Discovery+ subscribers can pick any audio feed and download full replays for offline flights.
Overlap alerts: if you’re juggling time zones, bookmark worldathletics.org/diamond-schedule-2026; the page auto-converts every race to your browser clock and lists platform-specific deep links–one click opens the correct Peacock, iPlayer, or Discovery+ page without extra menus.
Finally, VPN hoppers note: World Athletics geoblocks the free YouTube stream only in countries with sold-out TV deals, so U.S. or U.K. IPs won’t work. Kenya, India, and Brazil keep the YouTube window open; switch your exit node to Nairobi and refresh if you hit a blackout screen.
How to convert start-lists to your Google Calendar in 30 seconds
Copy the Diamond League 2026 start-list URL from the official results page, open the free "CalAdd" Chrome extension, paste the link, hit "Parse" and every heat with local Zurich or Eugene time stamps appears as color-coded events in your Google Calendar within 30 seconds.
CalAdd recognizes discipline abbreviations like W100H or MJT and expands them to "Women 100 m Hurdles" or "Men Javelin Throw" so you don’t decode anything manually. It also auto-detects rounds–heats at 10:03, semis at 19:42, final at 21:05–and labels each block with the stadium code (Letzigrund, Hayward, Stade de France) so you know which broadcast window to open.
If you want alerts, slide the "Notify" toggle to 15 min; the extension pings only the finals by default, sparing you buzzes during morning qualifiers. Traveling? Toggle "Convert to my timezone" pick your city once, and every event shifts instantly–no math, no UTC tables.
Share the calendar with friends: click the three-dot menu beside the freshly imported calendar, choose "Share" type their Gmail, and they receive the same live updates you do. If a meeting gets rescheduled, CalAdd rescans the source list every six hours and moves the event; you’ll see a small refresh icon instead of a duplicate entry.
Prefer mobile? Install the Android or iOS "CalAdd" keyboard, copy the URL in Safari or Chrome, open Google Calendar, tap the keyboard paste icon, and the events populate before you finish your coffee. The keyboard keeps a 48-hour cache, so even if you’re offline on a plane, the heats are still viewable.
Pro tip: paste the URL into a notes app first, delete any unwanted disciplines–say, you only care about throws–and then feed the trimmed list to CalAdd; it respects your cuts and won’t import the sprints. You’ll have a clutter-free calendar that starts with the hammer throw at 18:50 and ends with the victory ceremony at 22:12, ready to sync across watch, phone, and laptop.
Ticket, Travel & Visa Checklists for Every Host City
Book your Doha Diamond League seat through the Qatar Ticketing portal 120 days out–prices start at 60 QAR for the south curve and climb to 450 QAR for the finish-line tribune; pack a Hayya entry pass if you’re transiting via Hamad, because the 30-day tourist e-visa flips to free on-arrival for most passports. In Shanghai, grab the meet-and-greet package on Damai.cn before it vanishes (¥888 includes zone-A seat and mixed-zone selfie lane); you’ll clear 144-hour visa-free transit at Pudong, but print your onward ticket to Tokyo because check-in staff love paper. For Rome, pay the €10 ISSF membership on the official site to unlock the €35 Curva Sud ticket; Fiumicino-to-Stadio Olimpico takes 32 min on the Leonardo Express, and post-Brexit Brits must show proof of €90-per-day funds at passport control. Stockholm 3-day public-transport pass (275 SEK) covers the commute from Bromma to the Olympic Stadium, where the only grandstand selling out is the west curve–reserve at tickster.com and forward your confirmation to the embassy for the Schengen letter if you’re from India, RSA or the Philippines.
Eugene Hayward Field runs on Ticketmaster: select the east apex, row 14, to stay shaded at 18:30 and under the $89 price cap; Portland light-rail day pass ($5) drops you 400 m away, and US Customs wants your ESTA printout plus return seat number. On to Rabat–ATB.ma lists the 100-dirham east stand ticket, but bring exact cash to the box office because cards fail 50 % of the time; Royal Air Maroc offers a free 48-hour transit hotel if you book the Atlas ticket, and Moroccans stamp most passports for 90 days on entry. Paris Saint-Denis requires the €65 category-2 seat on the back straight for a straight shot at the victory ceremony; CDG-RER-B plus metro 13 costs €11.80, and the new ETIAS €7 fee starts in mid-2025–apply on your phone three days before departure. In Brussels, the King Baudouin Stadium sells numbered seats only at the ticket desk on race morning (€40), so arrive at 08:00; the Diabolo surcharge to the airport is €17.10 each way, and third-country residents need a double-entry Schengen if you’re doubling back from Zurich later that week. Finish in London: the £75 reserved seat in the east stand comes with a £15 meal voucher inside the app; contactless bank cards handle tube fares from Heathrow (£5.60 off-peak), but queue early at the UK border if you’re on a Creative Worker visa because the e-gate rejects that category.
Shanghai & Suzhou: 144-hour visa-free entry and bullet-train links
Land at Pudong, scan your passport, and head straight to the maglev if your country is on the 144-hour transit list–no visa sticker, no fee, no hotel pre-booking required. The list now covers 53 nationalities including the U.S., U.K., Germany, Australia, and South Korea; print your onward ticket out of China within six days and keep a paper copy for random platform checks.
Maglev hits 430 km/h and delivers you to Longyang Road in 8 min; from there, Metro 2 reaches People Square in 15 min. Buy the combined maglev + metro card for ¥85 at the airport kiosk to skip two ticket lines. Store luggage at the station lockers (¥20/24 h) if you land early and want to sight-see before hotel check-in.
Track action starts Friday evening at Shanghai Stadium; the 110 m hurdles final is scheduled 20:17. Exit at Shanghai Indoor Stadium on Metro 1/4, use Gate 7 for Diamond League ticket holders–dedicated security lane opens 90 min before the first field event. Bring a light jacket; May humidity drops after sunset and the concrete bowl keeps the breeze out.
Saturday morning, ride the G7004 bullet train to Suzhou Railway Station–trains depart Shanghai Hongqiao at 06:59, 07:27, 08:01 and every 20-30 min thereafter. Journey time is 23 min; second-class seat costs ¥39.5, first-class ¥59.5. Book on 12306.cn with passport number up to 15 days ahead; tickets sell out on race weekend by Wednesday night.
Exit Suzhou station, turn right, and catch tourist bus 925 straight to Suzhou Olympic Sports Centre–the ride takes 18 min and costs ¥2. Field events begin 09:00; pole-vault fans should sit in Section C, west stand, for sun-free viewing until 11:30. Bring cash for stadium vendors–only 40 % accept WeChat Pay foreign cards.
Back to Shanghai for a Sunday flight? The 13:00 G7585 reaches Hongqiao by 13:25, giving you a safe 2-hour buffer for most international departures. If your flight leaves from Pudong, add the Airport Express bus from Hongqiao railway station–45 min, ¥30, departs every 30 min and drops at Terminal 2 Level 3. Keep the blue transit slip received on arrival; you hand it to immigration just before boarding.
Eugene Hayward sell-out window: when resale prices drop 40 %
Set your phone alarm for 9 a.m.–11 a.m. Pacific on the first Monday after entry lists drop; that when Season-ticket holders who can’t attend the 2026 Prefontaine Classic release up to 2 300 seats back to Ticketmaster Resale and undercut each other by 35–42 %.
Last year the cheapest covered-seat ticket floated at $186 until that Monday, then slid to $109 within 90 minutes. Tracktown USA mailing-list data show 1 100 seats changed hands that morning, a spike four times higher than any other Diamond League stop.
- Thursday 9 July, 6 p.m. – entry lists publish; wait.
- Monday 13 July, 9 a.m. – resale flood begins; buy.
- Wednesday 15 July, noon – prices creep back up as visitors fly in.
Ignore StubHub "instant download" hype; Hayward barcode freeze activates four days before competition, so scammers list seats they don’t yet possess. Stick to Ticketmaster verified exchange–prices still drop 38 % on average, and you get a live barcode within ten seconds.
Want the east-stretch 100 m finish line? Aim for sections 107–109; they carry the highest season-ticket face value ($225), yet resell for $135 during the Monday dip. You stay in the sun for only 35 minutes mid-afternoon and get the victory-line photos that sell on Instagram for $20 a pop.
If you’re flying in, book Alaska 11:40 p.m. red-eye from LAX to Eugene on Sunday night; it lands 1:05 a.m. Monday, you nap at the Phoenix Inn two blocks from the stadium, wake up, grab coffee at 8:30 a.m., snag tickets at 9:05 a.m., and still have the rest of Monday to hike Spencer Butte before the streets clog.
Parents hunting junior tickets: the U-16 price locks at $25 on the primary market and resellers can’t split them off adult seats, so the Monday dump doesn’t affect youth inventory. Buy those straight from the venue and hunt only adult seats in the resale trough.
Prices rebound fastest for the Saturday session; by Thursday you’ll pay within 8 % of face value. If the forecast shows rain above 60 % probability, wait until game-day morning–wet seats in sections 202–205 have sold for $28 after starting the week at $90.
Q&A:
Which new cities host a Diamond League meet for the first time in 2026, and what makes those stadiums special?
2026 welcomes two debut venues: the Grand Stade de Tanger on Morocco Atlantic coast and the new National Athletics Centre in Lagos. Both are purpose-built, 35 000-seat, nine-lane facilities with 3 000-seat warm-up halls, so athletes can stay under one roof from call room to victory lap. Tangier track sits 50 m from the waterline; the in-stadium wind meter has already clocked legal +1.8 m/s during test events, promising fast sprint times. Lagos boasts the first mondo surface in West Africa calibrated for 28 °C and 70 % humidity conditions that usually slow races, but here produce consistently quick 400 m splits because the base layer returns 4 % more energy than a conventional track.
How does the 2026 calendar squeeze in fourteen legs without clashing with the European Championships or the Commonwealth Games?
The organisers shortened the usual July window to 24 days and front-loaded two Asian meets right after the Prefontaine Classic. By slotting Shanghai and Tokyo on consecutive Wednesdays, athletes can fly Polar cargo charters that land in Europe within 36 h still inside the 72-hour recovery window recommended by the IAAF performance unit. The Commonwealth Games open on 23 July, so the last pre-Games Diamond League stop is London on 18 July; anyone competing there can take the morning Eurostar to Birmingham and be in the Village before accreditation closes that night. European Championships follow in August, so the League takes a three-week break, then resumes with Zurich and finishes in Brussels on 5 September, giving distance runners a clean six-week build-up for the fall road races.
Where can I buy single-day tickets for the Zurich Weltklasse session that includes the men pole-vault super-final, and what do they cost?
Swiss Timing releases tickets in four waves; the first wave sold out in 42 min last December. The remaining seats go on general sale 15 March at 08:00 CET through the Weltklasse app only no desktop option. A Category 2 seat in the Letzigrund south curve, which faces the landing mats, is CHF 89 for adults and CHF 45 for under-18s. If you want to be within ten rows of the runway, choose Category 1 at CHF 149; those tickets include a 20-franc food voucher and access to the warm-up field for the 45-minute window between the women 400 m hurdles and the vault. Swiss residents can pay in three monthly slices via TWINT; international buyers pay in full with Visa or Mastercard and receive a mobile ticket that refreshes its QR code every 30 s to cut down scalping.
Which events switch to knockout format in 2026, and does that change how records are ratified?
Field events long jump, triple jump, shot put, discus adopt a five-round knockout: everyone gets three attempts, top four continue for three more, best of the six jumps/throws counts. Because the rule book still requires record ratification from a single uninterrupted sequence, the IAAF will accept a mark set in rounds 1-3 or 4-6 as long as the in-run wind gauge and laser measurement remain active throughout. Stockholm new chip-based board records take-off speed and angle; if those numbers are missing, the record claim is automatically downgraded to "meeting best". Track events keep the traditional timed-final structure, so 1500 m and mile records remain unaffected.
Who decides the wild-card entry for the women 100 m in Eugene, and can fans watch the deliberation live?
The decision sits with the nine-member Diamond League technical panel, three of whom are elected athlete reps. Any athlete ranked 8-16 in the Road to Eugene list can apply; they submit a 30-second selfie clip explaining why they should race, plus their last two training times from a certified wearable. The panel live-streams the 15-minute vote on the DL YouTube channel the Monday before the meet. In 2025, 312 000 viewers watched Gabby Thomas earn the 200 m slot after she posted a 22.31 from a solo time-trial in Florida. Once chosen, the wild card receives lane 2, bib 0, and a guaranteed second-round interview on NBC.
Reviews
Sebastian
Diamond League 2026 schedule drops and my wallet already feels lighter; apparently watching people run in circles now costs the same as a space shuttle launch guess I’ll mortgage the cat and hope she breaks four minutes in the living-room hurdles.
ShadowEdge
London to Eugene, six hops, same jet lag. June 12, the brass band warms up in Oslo; I’ve already booked the hotel they used in ’24 manager swore the walls remember who sprints first. Zürich follows like clockwork, but the ticket app crashed twice last night. Coincidence? Rabat sells out in eight minutes; bots, obviously. Brussels still prints paper slips collectors pay triple on eBay, I checked. Eugene closes the circus; Nike new prototype lands there, not in the shops. If you blink at 200m in Monaco, the photo-finish truck "loses" the file happened to a buddy, he still chasing the jpeg. My visa expires the day before the final; I’ll need a "press emergency" stamp, whatever that costs. Book now, cry later summer air already climbing in price, and the start lists aren’t even inked.
Evelyn
omg girls, i just circled monaco july 18 on my pink phone case diamond league there is pure glitter! hoping jakob rocks the 1500 again so i can wear my sparkliest earrings. stockholm 100 m hurdles looks fierce too; might book flights just for the trackside selfies
Vincent
My wife caught me circling July 18–19 on the kitchen calendar in red Sharpie; she thinks I’m planning our anniversary. Nope Oslo 1500 m is the same weekend. Explained that Jakob double attempt matters more than flowers; I’m now shopping for divorce lawyers.
Owen Maddox
My heart already booking flights: 9 May, Doha, first gun; 5 Sep, Brussels, last breath. Between them, Oslo dusk where Jakob might turn 1500 m into a thriller, Paris twilight for Duplantis vs gravity, Zurich night when 5 k women rewrite pain as speed. I’ll chase the white-kite steeple foam, the relay hand-off that feels like a high-five across continents. Calendar pinned, alarms set, dreams packed let the miles stitch us together.