The Memorial Van Damme in Brussels has been the season-closing meeting in all five previous Diamond League campaigns and this year is no different, as the world\u2019s best athletes again converge on the Belgian capital for their final major performances of the season.<\/p>\n
While the meeting is now known as the season finale and has been part of the IAAF Diamond League since 2010, the event was first held in 1977, having been organised by a group of local journalists in order to honour the Belgian endurance runner Ivo Van Damme, a double silver medalist at the 1976 Olympics, who had lost his life in a car accident.<\/p>\n
Diamond Race leaders in all 16 disciplines will toe the line in Brussels, with only Britain\u2019s Mo Farah, who jointly leads the 5000m Diamond Race with Ethiopia\u2019s Yomif Kejeclcha, absent. <\/p>\n
Retrospective\u2026<\/b><\/p>\n
Regular spectators at the Brussels meeting don\u2019t need long memories in order to recall truly world class performances. <\/p>\n
Only last year they witnessed one of the greatest high jump performances of all time from Qatar\u2019s Mutaz Essa Barshim, who cleared an astonishing 2.43m on his way to claiming the Diamond Trophy. That was one of three meeting records set on the night, the others being Barbora Spotakova\u2019s 67.99m javelin and Valerie Adams\u2019 20.59m shot put. Barshim\u2019s superhuman effort wasn\u2019t just a meeting record, however \u2013 it was an outright Diamond League record, as one might expect from a performance that only world record holder Javier Sotomayor bettered.<\/p>\n
World class performances are par for the course in Brussels, though. <\/p>\n
In recent years the previous performance that stood out against all others was the USA\u2019s Aries Merritt\u2019s stunning World Record 12.80 seconds over 110m hurdles at the end of the 2012 season. <\/p>\n
The year before, Yohan Blake also scorched to the second quickest 200m in history, clocking 19.26, which remains an IAAF Diamond League record, while other Diamond League bests set in 2011 were Anna Chicherova\u2019s 2.05m high jump and Bekele\u2019s 26:43.16 10000m. In 2010 Andreas Thorkildsen threw 89.88m to take the javelin, a mark since betered by Julius YEgo in Birmingham, and in 2012 Francine Niyonsaba set a record 1:56.59 over 800m.<\/p>\n
Prior to the Diamond League era, numerous world records were set at the Memorial Van Damme.<\/p>\n
In 1997 there was an incredible distance double, as the great Daniel Koman set a new 5000m record of 12:39.74 on the same night that the legendary Paul Tergat clocked 26:27.85, a new best for 10000m. <\/p>\n
Indeed, Brussels was seen as something of an endurance runner\u2019s paradise, with Kenenisa Bekele setting another 10000m world record, 26:17.53, in 2005.<\/p>\n
Diamond Race Leaders<\/b><\/p>\n
The low down on who can take the Diamond Trophies in Brussels can be found here<\/link>.<\/p>\n
Dean Hardman for the IAAF Diamond League<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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