A brilliant one-day bash in 2017
The fourth edition of the Anniversary Games marked the start of an absolute bumper summer of athletics at the London Stadium with the start of back-to-back World Championships barely a week later.
As result the event became a one-day blitz but, given the performances on show and the sheer amount that happened, you would have hardly noticed it wasn’t longer.
And so where to begin. Well, there was yet another world record as British race walker Tom Bosworth stormed round the track in the mile. The complete shock on his face as he realised, surely one of the Anniversary Games’ most iconic ever images.
There was also a warm farewell for the legend David Weir, who signed off his wheelchair racing career on the track – at the time – with victory in the 800m. Paralympic events once again included in the schedule, and the adoration for Weir something else.
There was no Usain Bolt as he prepared for the World Championships elsewhere but there was a Mo Farah to guarantee the headline performance so expected from the event. The now four-time Olympic champion winning the 3000m.
Farah was one of five Brits to win on the day while the international stars – led by American six-time Olympic and nine-time world champion at that point Allyson Felix – didn’t disappoint either.
Felix set a world lead in the 400m and Botswana’s Nijel Amos did the same in the 800m while there were three meeting records. Kenyan Hellen Obiri’s was the most impressive as she went toe-to-toe with British hopeful Laura Muir over a mile.
The Anniversary Games always delivers off the track, as well as on it, and the fans that flocked in were also treated to a special presentation. The 2008 British men’s 4x400m relay team received their retrospective Olympic bronze from the Beijing Games to an appreciative crowd.
The event also ended, after Farah’s victory, with his fellow British athletes selected for the World Championships in August joining him, and a host of young volunteers, in being paraded around the track and wished the best for the month to come.
Tickets for the London Diamond League at the London Stadium on Sunday 23 July 2023 are available to buy now here. Tickets start from just £23 for adults, £13 for seniors and students and only £5 for juniors.
