The 2025 Golden Gala Pietro Mennea, held on Friday 6 June at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico, got the 2025 Diamond League in Europe off to a flying start and featured some of the season’s most electrifying performances.
After stops in Asia and Africa, the fifth meeting of this summer’s Diamond League saw two world-leading marks, two meeting records and four national records on the athletics track installed at the historic venue in October 2023, ahead of the stadium hosting the 2024 European Athletics Championships.
The Rome Diamond League meeting has a special place in the heart of Mondo, whose headquarters are in Alba Frazione Gallo, because since 2013 it has been named after the Italian sprint icon Pietro Mennea who died just a few months before that year’s meeting.
Mennea set three world records on Mondo athletics tracks, including its very first global mark as part of the Italian 4x200m quartet who ran 1:21.50 in Barletta back in 1972.
Kenya’s Paris 2024 double Olympic champion Beatrice Chebet delivered the highlight of this year’s meeting, clocking 14:03.69 in the women’s 5000m, the second-fastest time ever and just shy of Gudaf Tsegay’s world record of 14:00.21 which the Ethiopian ran in 2023.
“I see that my body is in good shape, and I am capable of the world record, so now I am going home and will prepare for it. Everything is possible – if I get someone who will push me up to 3000m, it is possible,” said the phenomenal Chebet.
Local star Nadia Battocletti finished third in an Italian record of 14:23.15 to move up to second place in the European all-time list.