Lavillenie continues to fly high in the Diamond Race

Monaco – June 06, 2013: With four of the 14 meetings of the 2013 IAAF Diamond League season completed, France’s Olympic Pole Vault champion Renaud Lavillenie, one of the stars of tonight’s Golden Gala Pietro Mennea in Rome’s 1960 Olympic Stadium, continues to fly high above his peers in the all-time statistics of the Diamond Race.

The Diamond Race is the annual season-long points battle in the 32 event disciplines which is at the core of the IAAF Diamond League. The IAAF Diamond League has quickly established itself as the toughest athletics competition outside of the IAAF World Championships or the Olympic Games.

Currently only nine athletes have managed to take a Diamond Race victory in each of the four years of the IAAF Diamond League and only 37 athletes have finished in a top three points scoring position.

Standing out above them all is Lavillenie who has an all-time total of 14 victories in a single discipline in the IAAF Diamond League.

The Frenchman’s first outing in the 2013 series, a world-leading 5.95m in Eugene last Saturday, was an all-time record for the IAAF Diamond League.

There have so far been four IAAF Diamond League records broken this year, with Mutaz Essa Barshim’s 2.40m jump in Eugene, Kirani James’ 44.02 400m in Shanghai and Brittney Reese’s 7.25m leap in Doha, joining Lavillenie’s vault as the best ever performances in those events during the short life span of athletics’ top tier invitational circuit which began in 2010.

New Zealand’s World and Olympic champion shot putter Valerie Villi with 13 Diamond Race wins is the second most successful athlete all-time in a single event.

In the early stages of this year’s Diamond Race, Lavillenie currently is in the joint lead in the Pole Vault with Greece’s Konstadínos Filippídis, while in the women’s Shot Put, Adams shares the top spot with Germany’s Christina Schwanitz.

The Diamond Race – How it works

Annually in each of the 32 event disciplines showcased by the IAAF Diamond League there is a Diamond Race with points available throughout the 14 meeting season.

Winners of each Diamond Race receive a 40,000 USD cash prize and a spectacular Diamond Trophy created by Beyer, one of the oldest and most respected jewellers in the world, but more importantly, they will have shown season long consistency to earn the unchallenged honour of being the World Number 1.

Each of the 32 event disciplines is staged seven times with the top three athletes being awarded the same amount of points at each meeting with the exception of the Final where the points are doubled.

Points per event discipline at each meeting

1st place – 4 points (Final: 8 points)

2nd place – 2 points (Final: 4 points)

3rd place – 1 point (Final: 2 points)

The athlete with the highest number of points in each event discipline at the end of the IAAF Diamond League season wins the ‘Diamond Race’.

In case of equality on points, the number of victories decides the winner. If there still is a tie, the better result at the Final acts as the tie-breaker. For an athlete to win a Diamond Race and its associated prize, and/or to be ranked in the final points standings, he / she must compete in the final (Zürich or Brussels) of their event discipline.

2013 IAAF Diamond League Calendar

Doha, QAT – Fri 10 May – done

Shanghai, CHN – Sat 18 May

New York, USA – Sat 25 May

Eugene, USA – Sat 1 Jun

Rome, ITA – Thu 6 Jun

Oslo, NOR – Thu 13 Jun

Birmingham, GBR – Sun 30 Jun

Lausanne, SUI – Thu 4 Jul

Paris, FRA – Sat 6 Jul

Monaco, MON – Fri 19 Jul

London, GBR – Fri 26 / Sat 27 Jul

Stockholm, SWE – Thu 22 Aug

Zürich, SUI – Thu 29 Aug

Brussels, BEL – Fri 6 Sep