The management of the Diamond League has announced the calendar of the meetings for 2024. It is now official – the 15th Silesia Kamila Skolimowska Memorial will take place on 25 August. - This is a key change for us – stated Marek Plawgo, communication director of the meeting.
The meetings dedicated to the memory of the Olympic champion from Sydney were taking place after the top event of the season before the Polish event became part of the prestigious circuit. The timing was significant insofar as the interest generated by major championships brought into the stadium the fans eager to see their heroes live in the stadium. It was partly thanks to the timing that over 40 thousand fans turned up at the 2018 edition of „Kama”.
- Nobody had put on a bigger competition in Poland for years. Everything worked out perfectly: the weather, the fields, but most of all, we were just coming off the back of the European Championships in Berlin, which were spectacularly successful for the Polish team. That edition demonstrated that the late-summer date is the best guarantee of fan turnout – said Piotr Małachowski, sports director of the Silesia Kamila Skolimowska Memorial.
The move to an earlier date was a compromise between the Polish organisers and the Diamond League management – in 2022, they needed a replacement for the cancelled events in China, while for the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial joing the elite circuit was the fulfillment of a dream.
- We proved we were worthy of a spot on the Diamond League calendar. The surveys filled out by the athletes gave us an average score of 9.16 out of 10, we had the third-strongest fields on the circuit and the only meeting with stronger results was the season finale in Eugene. This gave us the mandate to fight for a better spot on the calendar while the calendar for the folloiwng year was being finalised. And it worked – the happy Marek Plawgo said. The former hurdler calls holding the 15th edition of the Memorial on 25 August „a key change”. - Every year this is the time in which athletics reaches the peak in terms of interest. We want to capitalise on that. We dream of taking another step towards a complete sellout of the Silesian Stadium every year – he added.
Tickets to the Polish stop on the Diamond League circuit are now available on the eBilet.pl website.
The „|Kama” Memorial will be the twelfth of 14 qualifying meets on the 2024 Diamond League. The list of events to be included in the programme in Silesia has not yet been officially revealed, but has been proposed to the organisers behind the scenes.
- We have already held some promising talks with stars. We are talking about the top echelons. Hardly anybody is saying no, and the names include world record holders and Olympic champions. Get ready for some major announcements – Małachowski said, maintaining an air of mystery.
The competition for booking top stars is strong. As usual, the calendar includes locations such as Lausanne, Zurich, Rome, Monaco, Oslo or Paris. Most of them will be visited before the League comes back to Silesia. The Diamond season will start early, on 20 April, in Xiamen, China. One reason is the European Championships taking place in Rome in June. The athletes need opportunities to test their shape, as well as to fight for Olympic qualification.
The Diamond League will take place in Brussels on 13-14 September.
2024 DIAMOND LEAGUE CALENDAR:
20 April – Xiamen
27 April – Shanghai
10 May – Doha
19 May – Rabat
25 May – Eugene
30 May – Oslo
2 June – Stockholm
7 July – Paris
12 July – Monaco
20 July – London
22 August – Lausanne
25 August – Silesia
29 August – Rome
5 September – Zurich
13-14 September – Brussels
