The Paris Diamond League athletics meet is set to go ahead on Sunday with a revised schedule despite the heatwave affecting much of Europe.An extreme high temperature warning was issued in the French capital this week, as temperatures hit 39 degrees Celsius on Friday (102 Fahrenheit) and a record 41 degrees on Thursday (106 Fahrenheit), prompting the Eiffel Tower to close early.France also recorded its hottest day on record on Wednesday, with temperatures reaching 43.8 degrees (110.84 Fahrenheit) in the west of the country.Slightly cooler conditions are expected for the meet at Stade Charlety this weekend, which is located in the south of the city. Temperatures are predicted to be 29 degrees when the first Diamond League event (the men’s 110m hurdles) takes place at 4:55pm local time. The red heatwave alert is in place between Thursday June 25 and Saturday June 27.Paris police had asked the event organisers to consider cancelling the meet, along with other scheduled events this weekend in the capital, such as the Pride march and the Solidays music festival.
An agreement was reached instead for an “adapted format”, the organisers announced in a statement on the Diamond League website on Friday.“Only competitions reserved for professional athletes will take place,” they added, with the programme typically also including events for national-level athletes as well as juniors.They have implemented special measures for fan and athlete safety, including opening entry gates later than normal, offering water stations and shaded areas, and increasing their medical and emergency response capacities.Duplantis will compete on Sunday after a rare loss earlier this month (Jonathan Nackstrand / AFP via Getty Images)Paris is the eighth of 15 legs in this season’s Diamond League, and has some big names lined up to compete. Mondo Duplantis will be there in the pole vault, his first competition after a three-year winning streak was ended on home soil in Stockholm, as will Emmanouil Karalis, the Greek jumper who is second behind world-record holder Duplantis on the all-time list.In the men’s 100m, Noah Lyles looks to build on a season which has included his best time since the 2024 Olympic final, with a 9.88s clocking in Rome last month, and a 150m world best run in Ostrava ten days ago. Also in that race is world indoor 60m champion Jordan Anthony, a training partner of his.Yan Zizi, the teenage Chinese javelin thrower, who earlier this year produced the second-longest mark in history (71.74m, about half a metre off the world record), headlines the women’s javelin event.Femke Broeders-Bol will take on Audrey Werro over 800m in a much-awaited clash. Broeders-Bol, who has multiple world titles and Olympic medals in 400m hurdles, is a relative newcomer to the event, having stepped up this season. Werro, meanwhile, is the fastest in the world this year and third on the all-time list thanks to her 1:53.98s run in Stockholm.Home favourite Jimmy Gressier, the world 10,000m champion from Tokyo last September, will compete over 5,000m in the final event of the meet.World records have been set here at each of the past three annual meetings, primarily over middle and long-distance events, which is highly unlikely to occur again given the conditions.
