40,211 fans in the stands in Silesia witnessed the third-fastest 400 metres hurdles ever by Karsten Warholm, a display by Faith Kipyegon and a phenomenal comeback of Keely Hodgkinson. The Diamond League in Silesia brought 31 records of various types. – You can feel at home here. Thank you, Poland! – The excited Norwegian stated. The meeting is the second-best in the world this year.
– For days like this, it is worth training all year round – were the first words coming from Ewa Swoboda after her run on Saturday in the Silesian Stadium. The women’s 100 metres ended a nearly five-hour long athletics feast – the only Diamond League meeting in this part of the world. An event that shocked the athletics world once again.
Swoboda did not win the race. She finished in a season’s best of 11.08, but the world leader Melissa Jefferson-Wooden ran a phenomenal 10.66.
The 36 Poles running, jumping and throwing in Silesia on Saturday had similar reference points. For their rivals – as usual – were the world’s greatest athletes. 31 records in total were set at this edition of the Skolimowska Memorial: Diamond League, area, national, meeting records and world-leading marks. There was also a deluge of personal bests. The boards handed to the athletes after their events were circulating around the stadium non-stop.
As Armand Duplantis did not set a world record in Poland on this occasion (he stopped at 6.10), after this Saturday the talk of the town are the runners.
– The track, the people, the noise? It carries you. It is a great experience to run here. Thank you, Poland – the meeting’s MVP Karsten Warholm said after his performance. The Norwegian received from the organisers an impressive ring, but not before running the 400m hurdles in 46.28. It was the third-fastest run of all time. As well as Warholm’s fastest since the Tokyo Olympic final, when he sat the still-standing world record of 45.94. – I know that final became a reference point. And that we are going back to Japan. To run like that, you need to have a great day, so I am really satisfied with what I did today – he commented.
It was also in the 400m hurdles – like Warholm – that Femke Bol impressed with her 51.91, a new world-leading mark.
Keely Hodgkinson is not afraid of world record talk, either. The record does not belong to her, but rather to Jarmila Kratochvilova. She talks about it as a vision for the future. And rightly so, as in the present the Olympic 800m champion from Paris, who only just started her season after an injury, ran a phenomenal 1:54.74. It is a new world lead and a time only marginally slower than her spectacular personal best from last year.
– Nobody knew what I was capable of. I did not know it myself. But with this weather and feeling like I did, I had to take a chance. The season is in its key phase. If I want to be in the mix at the World Championships, I had to convince myself. That it would be as fast as this? It is a small surprise for me, too. A very nice one – she commented.
The world record was a dream for two other athletes. At 1500m, Gudaf Tsegay maintained the pace for a long time (she finished in 3:50.62). Faith Kipyegon chased the dream even longer – at 3000m, the distance that brought a world record for Jakob Ingebrigtsen last year. Despite fantastic pacemaking and persistent chasing of the wavelights, the Kenyan finished in „only” the second-fastest time ever – 8:07.04. No one has run the distance as fast in 32 years!
– At one point it was hard to keep track of everything that was happening in the stadium simultaneously. You did not know which way to look, there was so many great things going on. It is fantastic. The times achieved by the 100 metre hurdlers are out of this world. There was a 12.28 in the heats and a 12.19 in the final by Masai Russell. Times which have given Olympic golds in the past would not give a place on the podium here – stated the excited sports director of the Memorail, Piotr Małachowski.
The total point score of this year’s edition of the Diamond League in Poland on the World Athletics tables is only slightly lower than last year’s – the edition featuring two world records.
– It was a shock, we had momentum. But it is harder to maintain the level. Thank you, Kamila Skolimowska is proud of you. What I heard from the most prominent people from World Athletics gives us a clear message: great things are coming our way. But things are great already – meeting director Marcin Rosengarten communicated to the ogranising committee directly after the event.
What about the Polish athletes? Worth noting are the performances of Klaudia Kazimierska – 3:59.66 in the 1500m or Alicja Sielska, who ran a personal best of 12.81 in the 100m hurdles. A solid time was achieved by Jakub Szymański in the 110m hurdles (13.28, 0.03 away from the national record). Disqualification for a false start ruined the chances of the Polish men’s 4x400m team for a World Championships qualifier. The team ran under protest, but it was slower than the required time of 2:59.12.
The 2025 Diamond League in Silesia was watched from the stands by 40,211 fans. Considering the event was taking place before, rather than after the main championship event of the year, the attendance numbers are remarkable.
Several days before this year’s edition we found out the date on which the athletics elite will come back to Silesia. The Diamond League management confirmed that the next Silesia Kamila Skolimowska Memorial will take place on August 23rd 2026. Ticket sales will start soon, with the caveat that the special early buyer offer will be available for persons subscribing to our newsletter. Subscribing is possible for free at any time.