After a monthlong break for national championships, the Diamond League resumes on Saturday with the Kamila Skolimowska Memorial in Silesia, Poland, kicking off a stretch of four Diamond Leagues in 13 days as the world’s top athletes make their final preparations ahead of the World Championships, which begin on September 13 in Tokyo. For some, like Yared Nuguse and Josh Hoey, these final Diamond Leagues represent a last-ditch attempt to run their way into the World Championships by winning the DL final in Zurich on August 28.
For others, like Noah Lyles and Keely Hodgkinson (who will race on Saturday for the first time in over year), it is a chance to get race-sharp against top competition. And for athletes who have already been dominating in 2025, like Kishane Thompson and Beatrice Chebet, these Diamond Leagues represent a chance to send a definitive message before the biggest meet of the year.
Between a Lyles-Thompson-Kenny Bednarek showdown in the 100, the return of Hodgkinson in the 800, and a world record attempt from Faith Kipyegon in the 3000, Silesia has no shortage of storylines. We already previewed Kipyegon’s WR attempt (which will be paced by Olympic silver medalist Jessica Hull) in a separate article. Here are five other events to watch in Silesia on Saturday.
1) Bad blood and an Olympic rematch in the men’s 100
The men’s 100 was already going to be the headline attraction of this meet considering it will pit Noah Lyles and Kishane Thompson against each other for the first time since Lyles edged out Thompson for Olympic gold by five-thousandths of a second in Paris last summer. But this race got even spicier after what went down in the US 200-meter final on August 3.
You’ve seen the clip by now. Lyles beats Kenny Bednarek at USAs (again). Lyles stares down Bednarek while crossing the finish line. Bednarek pushes Lyles. Lyles says he wants an apology. Bednarek says he expected a phone call.
Bednarek told CNN that the two men subsequently had an hourlong conversation to clear the air and that “we’re good now.” We’ll see whether that is the case on Saturday in Silesia. Nothing stirs up emotions like a big race.
“When it comes to 100 and 200, that rivalry that me and Noah really have right there, it’s real, and every single time we step on the track, you’re going to expect some fireworks,” Bednarek told CNN. “It’s going to be intense every single time we step on that track,” he said of the Lyles-Bednarek rivalry.
This will be the biggest 100-meter race of the year so far and a preview of next month’s World Championships. Thompson and Bednarek are the two fastest men in the world this year, with Thompson running a personal best of 9.75 to win the Jamaican title on June 27 only for Bednarek to answer with a 9.79 personal best of his own at the US championships on August 1.
Thompson and Bednarek have been the cream of the crop in the 100 in 2025, but neither has ever won a global title. To do so in Tokyo, they will have to get through the reigning world and Olympic champion Lyles. Lyles has only run two 100m races this year after missing time due to a foot injury, and was convincingly beaten by Oblique Seville in his last Diamond League in London a month ago. But Lyles is healthy again, gaining strength, and always peaks well.
The winner in Silesia will be the favorite for Worlds, but a lot can change in the next four weeks. Or even the next four days — Thompson and Lyles are scheduled to race again in Lausanne on Wednesday.
Who wins the men’s 100 in Silesia?
Other
Kishane Thompson
Noah Lyles
Kenny Bednarek
2) Olympic champion Keely Hodgkinson returns for her first race in 12 months
After three straight silver medals, 2024 was the year Keely Hodgkinson climbed the mountain and became the greatest women’s 800-meter runner in the world. She won the European title in Rome.
She ran a personal best of 1:54.61 in London, the fastest time in the world in six years. She capped an unbeaten 800m season with a victory in the Olympic final in Paris. She even won BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the first women’s runner to do so since Kelly Holmes in 2004.
2025 was meant to be the year that the 23-year-old Hodgkinson pushed on towards Jarmila Kratochvílová‘s ancient 1:53.28 world record. Instead, it has been a season of frustrating stops and starts.
It actually started last year. After the Olympics, Hodgkinson had planned on making an attempt at 1:53 in the Diamond League final in Brussels but wound up shutting down her season due to injury. She had planned on opening her 2025 season in February by trying to break the world indoor record at her self-titled meet, the Keely Klassic, but pulled out of that too due to a hamstring injury. She withdrew from the London Diamond league in July as well.
Barring a last-minute setback, Hodgkinson will finally return on Saturday. The race in Silesia is something of a soft opener since it is not a Diamond League points event (though FloTrack has confirmed that it will start its broadcast early at 9:20 a.m. ET so that American viewers can watch it). Kenyan trials winner Lilian Odira and Botswana’s Oratile Nowe (1:57.49 sb) are Hodgkinson’s biggest competitors. A peak Hodgkinson would be a heavy favorite in this race; we’ll see how close she is this weekend.
The real test comes next week, where Hodgkinson is scheduled to face Olympic silver medalist Tsige Duguma, world indoor champion Prudence Sekgodiso, and training partner Georgia Hunter Bell in Lausanne.
Despite the long layoff, Hodgkinson is still a contender for gold in Tokyo as 2022 world champ Athing Mu-Nikolayev did not make the US team and 2023 world champ Mary Moraa has not been in good form.
3) Beatrice Chebet drops down to the 1500, can Nikki Hiltz get the American record?
Beatrice Chebet has the 10,000-meter world record. She has the 5,000-meter world record. Could she break the 1500-meter world record in Silesia?
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Probably not. But it’s not an entirely ludicrous suggestion. If I told you there was a male college runner with personal bests of 8:11 for 3,000, 13:58 for 5,000, and 28:54 for 10,000, it would be reasonable to suggest he could run 3:48.68 for 1500, right?
It’s not a perfect comparison, of course. The shorter the distance, the more the gap between men and women grows. And Chebet is a distance-oriented runner. But she is in sensational form, having already run 8:11 and 13:58 this year (and looking as if she could have gone much faster) while demonstrating a wicked turn of speed (remember her 26.6 final 200 in Xiamen?).
The women’s 1500 in Silesia is not being billed as a world record attempt, either, but it does feature Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay, who loves to take races out hard. In Tsegay’s most recent race, a mile in London, she went out ahead of the pacers, hitting 400 in 60.0 and 800 in 2:03.5 before fading over the second half.
That’s not quite WR pace (WR pace in the 1500 is 2:01.96 at 800) but she could give Chebet someone to chase early. The more likely scenario is that Chebet runs something in the low-3:50s…but will that be enough to defeat a field that includes Tsegay (3:50 pb), Diribe Welteji (3:51 pb), and Olympic bronze medalist Georgia Hunter Bell?
This race is also a big test for US champion Nikki Hiltz. Hiltz has a great close, but global championships go fast these days. Hiltz ran 3:55.96 at the Pre Classic in July, close to their 3:55.33 pb, but still finished well back of Welteji and Hunter Bell. Can Hiltz close that gap? With another fast race in the cards, Hiltz could also threaten Shelby Houlihan‘s 3:54.99 American record from 2019.
What will Beatrice Chebet run in the 1500 in Silesia?
4) Yared Nuguse, Hobbs Kessler, & Josh Hoey get back on the horse in the men’s 1500
You’d be hard-pressed to find three athletes more devastated by their results at USAs than Yared Nuguse, Hobbs Kessler, and Josh Hoey. Nuguse is the reigning Olympic bronze medalist, Kessler was 5th in the Olympic 1500 final last year, and Hoey won the World Indoor 800 title in March and is the US leader in the 800 (1:42.01) and 1500 (3:29.75). Yet as things stand, all three will be watching the World Championships on TV.
They did not have to wait long for their revenge tour, as all three will kick off their Euro trips by running the 1500 in Silesia. Hoey’s spot in the Diamond League 800 final is virtually secure (he’s second in the standings), but Nuguse (12th) and Kessler (not ranked) are both on the outside of the 10-man 1500 final as things stand.
Nuguse should be fine as long as he runs a decent race in Silesia and/or Brussels next week. Kessler has a smaller margin for error; the cutoff to get in the final right now is 8 points. There could be some scratches ahead of him, but there are also two DL 1500s left, and 8 points is the max you can earn in one meet. Realistically, Kessler needs to finish at least 4th (5 points) or 5th (4 points) in Silesia and run well in Brussels just to make the final.
Looking at Silesia specifically, there is a good chance of an American victory. Australian Cameron Myers and Kenyans Reynold Cheruiyot and Timothy Cheruiyot are the top non-Americans in the field, and Nuguse beat all of them convincingly at the Prefontaine Classic. Olympic steeple champion Soufiane El Bakkali is dropping down, but this is not his primary event. Many of the big dogs in the 1500 — Kerr, Hocker, Ingebrigtsen, Laros, Phanuel Koech, even Habz — are absent.
Nuguse was only 5th at USAs, but he will have a rabbit in this one, and that should make a big difference. He is definitely the favorite. But Kessler and Hoey have both run 3:29 in the past and could be factors if Nuguse hasn’t dropped them by the final 200. Of the non-Americans, I like Reynold Cheruiyot the most. He won the Kenyan trials with a huge kick but does have a habit of putting himself in difficult positions.
Who wins the men’s 1500 in Silesia?
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