2016 Diamond League

The 2016 IAAF Diamond League was the seventh season of the annual series of outdoor track and field meetings, organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

The 2016 series saw three changes to the format. One of the two American meetings, the Adidas Grand Prix held in New York, was dropped from the calendar in favour of the Rabat Meeting in Morocco. This was the first meeting on the calendar to be held in Africa, which had previously been the only northern hemisphere continent not represented on the Diamond League. The second major change was an amendment to the point scoring system. The former model of four points for the winner, two for runner-up and one for third was overhauled with a broader points system giving ten to the winner, six the runner-up and progressively fewer points down to sixth place. The system of double points for the event finals was retained. A third change was the compression of the field events – throws and horizontal jumps allowed three attempts for all athletes, then the top four athletes at that point of the competition were permitted an additional three attempts (as opposed to the previous format of all athletes receiving six attempts).

The programme for Diamond Race events remained unchanged, with a total of 32 events divided evenly between the sexes. On the track, six running events were included for each of the sexes, from 100 metres up to 5000 metres, and all Olympic hurdles and steeplechase events featured. In the field events, all traditional four jumps were contested and three of the four traditional throwing events were held. Hammer throw remained absent due to restrictions of stadium size. The parallel IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge series catered for that event.

The attempt format for throws and horizontal jumps was amended so that each athlete received three attempts, then the top four athletes received an additional three attempts. This change followed a similar arrangement that was introduced at the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships. The announcement of the change received a mixed reaction from athletes and fans.

Performances in each of the Diamond Races events received points according to the finishing position of the athletes. The winner of the Diamond Race is the athlete with the greatest number of points by the end of the series. In the event of a tie on points, the victor is the athlete with the most race wins that year. The series winners receive a Diamond Trophy and US$40,000.

The following fourteen meetings are scheduled to be included in the 2016 season:

Events not included in the Diamond League are marked in grey background.

There were twelve world leads set at the opening meet of the season in Doha, as well as 4 meeting records at an event which has begun the Diamond League season each of the past 7 years. The women's triple jump proved to be an enthralling contest, as the lead changed hands 5 times between Caterine Ibargüen and Yulimar Rojas over the course of the 6 rounds. The women's pole vault also provided a spectacle as Sandi Morris jumped a height of 4.83 to equal the Diamond League record and set an outdoor world lead. Two Americans, Ameer Webb and LaShawn Merritt, won the men's sprint events, with Webb running 19.85 to go 23rd on the all-time list. All the women's track events had new world leads set, with the most impressive being Almaz Ayana's 3000 metres victory, where she ran less than a second outside her personal best to run the 19th fastest race of all time. In the men's field, Christian Taylor returned to the meet where he came within 25 cm of the world record last year, and won his event with 17.23.