Three world records, four world performances and a fantastic women's 100 m: the 36th Herculis meeting kept its promises!
The traditional summer meeting at the Stade Louis-II once again served up a sumptuous spectacle for the 16,000 spectators who had come to admire the world's finest athletes. The 2022 edition of this Monegasque leg of the Wanda Diamond League witnessed some truly outstanding performances.
Starting with the women's 100 m, which was won by Jamaica's five-time world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce in a lightning fast time of 10″62, smashing the previous Monegasque record of 10″72, set back in 1998 by the American Marion Jones .
The crowd at the Stade Louis II was treated to another sensational show in the women's 1500 m, where for most of the race Kenya's Faith Kipyegon looked on course to beat the world record set by Genzebe Dibaba in Monaco in 2015, eventually missing out by just three-tenths of a second.
One of the performances of the year came courtesy of Jake Wightman in the 1,000 m, who set a new best time for this meeting of 2’13″88. In the men's 200 m, the world's third best of all time, Noah Lyles with a PB of 19″31, had announced he was gunning for Usain Bolt's equally legendary record of 19″19. But the American world champion had to be content with beating his own meeting record, finishing with a time of 19″45.
There were smiles on French faces at the end of the meeting, with world junior champion Sasha Zhoya getting within four one-hundredths of his own personal best, and Pascal
Martinot-Lagarde posting his best time of the year. It proved an excellent warm-up for the French hurdlers, as "PML" took silver at the European Championships two weeks later (missing out on gold by just one thousandth), while Just Kwaou-Mathey completed the podium.
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