Sydney McLaughlin to double in DL Final - an event she's not eligible for - Update: DL will not let her run

Is it confirmed that the DL champions will get a bye for WC next year? WC'25 is after the diamond league finals.

Nothing is published or confirmed yet, so it could be the prior years DL winners, as is usually the case, or the same year (rarely happens, but did happen in 2019).

Either way, I believe this is Kersee's motivation. He is risk averse, cautious, and to run two sprints on two consecutive days in September at the end of the season has to have it's returns. A NR over 400m or sub 22 sec 200m is not enough to risk running her. I believe the potential wild cards are his motivation.

Good for the sport. Who got bumped out?

Presumably no one - the rules say the top 8 qualify, plus a wild card, so there should be 9 in the 200m & 9 in the 400m. Brussels is a 9 lane track.

Of course, they don't in practice use wild cards in every event.

Not according to the Diamond League Regulations. They very specifically state the following in Clause 4.5:

• If granted a Global Wild Card, the athlete will not be eligible to receive Prize
Money or the Wild Card for World Championships scheduled to be held in the
same year but instead may be offered a special promotional fee.
• If they win, a Global Wild Card athlete will be awarded the Diamond League
trophy and the title of Diamond League Champion.

So she could be crowned the Diamond League Champion, but she won't be eligible to win the wild card for Tokyo.

But that wording is very specific: it wont be a wild card for a "World Championshipsscheduled to be held in the same year"....it will be for a World Championships held the following year.

If, of course, they do use the 2024 winners. In 2019 they used the 2019 winners, however, that year the DL Final fell on the last day of the qualification period. Nowadays that date is earlier in the calendar.

So, Laurent Meuwly has said they will be using the DL winners from Zurich D Final 25, NOT Brussels 24, so unless Kersee has misunderstood this....however, I have asked him where he has got this info from, as nothing has yet been published. (I'm assuming Swiss contacts fro the Zurich meet, as he is of course Swiss himself)

I would chuckle if Kersee really has assumed/misunderstood, and they end up announcing its the 25 DL winners, not 24.

If "and" was meant to be there, "and" would have been there. Given that it is not, is a clear indication that it was not meant to be there.

last time she raced Paulino, she pulled a Jakob. Didn't end well.

But this is only about Instagram followers. In general Mondo, Noah Lyles, Sha'carri, Femke and Jakob are a lot more popular than her

Cheaty McCheatface

Ato Boldon tweeting that Sydney wont/cannot run, as the meet organisers 'haven't accepted her entry and she does not qualify under their rules'....yet it was the meeting website that announced her participation! LOL

What a palaver.

I get the perspective of it not bothering you for the top athletes showing up for the biggest races, obviously we all want them there… however it seems like the rule exists to encourage the best athletes to show up to more than just the biggest race…like to incentivize them to participate in the diamond league throughout the year…

People whine that Sydney doesn't race enough and now she is racing and people are still whining. Every time she shows up on a startline it is must see TV. Of course it makes sense to put her in the entries. Sorry that your favorite athletes are not as dominant or have as much star power.

Ato Boldon tweeted that she would not run, according to a post I saw. Not sure if he retracted that since, or otherwise, but ... there's that, FWIW

(I tried to copy the link and it wouldn't paste)
(2) Ato Boldon on X: "Despite numerous reports to the contrary, my information is that Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone will NOT compete in Brussels. The meet has not accepted her entry, since she didn’t compete in any Diamond League meeting this year. “Byes” into the meet apply only to those who did." / X (twitter.com)

It's still up. It would be really odd if the meet announced she was competing and then they deny her.

Maybe the campaign here to keep her out was successful.

I can confirm that the DL is not going to let Sydney run in the Diamond League finals in Brussels. She can still run in the meet itself but it would have to be in a non-DL event. The CEO of the Diamond League announced the news during the Weltklasse Zurich technical meeting today.