I'm catching a replay of the Diamond League meet day 1 in Brussels, just saw the women's 400m. Sydney won by a mile and actually looked like she was dressed for the weather (it was rainy), but there were a couple of ladies whose outfits were very questionable. The Belgian gal wore black with gold glitter, looked like she was going to the disco. And another gal wore a horrible Adidas outfit, I didn't know Adidas was capable of such an atrocity. Anyhoo, back to the meet, it looks like it has a stellar lineup. (I thought track athletes were on break after the Olympics, glad I was wrong.)
PS - I have not been paying to attention to the whole Sydney McLaughlin - Levrone drama, so am catching up on it. I guess this article is a good place to start.
https://www.independent.co.uk/sport...e-diamond-league-final-brussels-b2611787.html
I don't think there's all that much by way of 'drama', and more that they've historically allowed wildcard entries to the DL final, but that's usually been if there's a major champion who's been out injured or some home interest or something. However, they understandably don't want to render the entire commercial calendar moot by having somebody win championship races ignoring the whole commercial calendar, then swan in to the "winner takes all" finale because of the champion status, and win that, taking the season-long title and the financial rewards as a result. Not only because it makes a mockery of the already silly "winner takes all in the final race" set-up, but because it will also discourage other stars from continuing with the commercial calendar, if they are able to coast on champion status and drop in for the big money events; that will make the ongoing DL and CT events less successful in attracting fans because of less star power, and make them less value to existing attendees as well, diluting the field, in much the same way as during the height of the Armstrong era all the top GC riders were super-peaking for the Tour and riding reduced calendars and it hurt the star power of a lot of smaller races in the intervening period.
While World Athletics' commercial circuit and the US circuit of domestic pro and NCAA events coexist and offer different options, and the successes of many from that US circuit who are little-known or even completely unknown to world audiences in Paris have made it clear there is a more than viable alternative to the DL/CT model out there, and obviously the whole Grand Slam Athletics thing is designed to try to capitalise on it, as mentioned in that article you link, its value is kind of determined by it needing to have essentially the full roster of every athlete it has signed up at each event. It seems likely to have a similar kind of level to many other US-parallel-series in events that aren't primarily the preserve of North America and where their leagues are the world's dominant (i.e. not basketball or ice hockey, international sports but very much with their home in the big leagues in the US and, in hockey's case, Canada) - likely the top level athletes will be absolutely world class and at the very highest level, but the depth of field is likely to tail away sooner such that the gap between the best and worst athlete in the field is likely to be larger than on the world stage - but in athletics that matters less, because away from the major championships it's less about who you beat but what time you run, or what distance you jump/throw. GSA having signed up the likes of Kerr, Nuguse, McLaughlin-Levrone and others who are US-based and most of the time primarily run in the US calendar is not just expected, but it would have been surprising had it
not happened. The key thing will be if some of the strongest US athletes who are stalwarts of the Diamond League and are major figures on the world calendar competing around the world regularly, like Ryan Crouser, Noah Lyles or Valarie Allman, decide to do GSA instead.
As for SML, I just don't think she really much likes being an athlete, the whole rigmarole of competing, and being away from home too long. She seldom competes at all, and when she does it's almost invariably in the US, outside major championships. The fact she's running in Belgium at all is a bit of a shock, you know, although it was the only European meet on her calendar in 2023 before she had to skip it with injury. Of course, running an extremely sparse calendar and running the insane times she does is always going to raise a few eyebrows, and having Bob Kersee as your coach is never going to let those eyebrows come down again, but she has never come across as somebody who likes the limelight and wants to be a big star, so instead she's kind of like the unbeatable final boss of the hurdles, and having her come to town is like some mythical special attraction.
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