Athletics will once again be centre stage at Rome’s Stadio Olimpico when the historic venue stages Europe’s first Wanda Diamond League meeting of 2025 on 6 June.
The world’s top athletes will converge on the Italian capital less than a year after the stadium staged the Roma 24 European Athletics Championships, 2024’s most important athletics championship other than the Olympic Games.
This year’s date is important as it marks the Golden Gala’s return to its traditional early season slot on the Diamond League calendar after moving to late August last year to accommodate the European Athletics Championships and Olympics.
However, whatever the date, world-class performances look assured after the superlatives achieved last summer on the MondotrackTM athletics track that was installed in October 2023.
In addition to receiving plaudits from almost every competitor at the continental showcase, no less than 15 championship records and 49 national records were set during six days of action at the European Athletics Championships last June.
The eye-catching performances continued at the Golden Gala meeting 11 weeks later.
One area record – Bahrain’s Winfred Yavi running the second fastest women’s 3000m steeplechase ever in 8:44.39 for an Asian record – two world-leading marks, three meeting records and four national records were among the highlights of the Diamond League meeting.
In the last four years of the Diamond League, from 2021-24, Mondo athletics tracks have helped produced:
Alongside the Stadio Olimpico – which memorably staged the 1960 Olympic Games the 1974 and 2024 European Athletics Championships and 1987 World Athletics Championships as well as many other major athletics meetings over the years – is the stunning Stadio dei Marmi, whose track was also restored with Mondo’s Sportflex Super X 720 athletics track at the end of 2023.
The Stadio dei Marmi – the Stadium of Marble – is used as a warmup track for major athletics meetings in the Stadio Olimpico.
It was opened in 1932 and can boast of being of being one of the most history-rich sports venues in the world with the Mondo athletics track being gazed upon by 60 four-metre-tall statues of athletes in classical poses and made from Carrara marble.