Eilidh Doyle led the way as European athletes made an impressive impact in Doha on Friday night in the opening IAAF Diamond League meeting of the season.
Running competitively for the first time under her married name after her wedding in October, European 400m hurdles champion Doyle - formerly Eilidh Child - won in a world-leading 54.53.
The Scotswoman has never started her season so quickly and her performance, and style of her victory, augurs well for the defence of her European crown in Amsterdam in July and Olympic bid in Rio a month later.
Doyle beat Bahrain’s Oluwakemi Adekoya (54.87) and Jamaican Kaliese Spencer (55.02) with a run that saw her in control from the third barrier.
By then she was always up on Spencer and from lane three, she just extended her lead and was never threatened.
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It was Doyle’s first run since last September and she put into action what she had predicted the day before when speaking to the heraldscotland about her hopes for the year and her coach Malcolm Arnold.
'He told me to have more confidence in myself and not feel intimidated,' said Doyle.
Dafne Schippers might not have won the 100m but she too showed what lies ahead with a superb run.
Schippers was second in 10.83, behind American Tori Bowie (10.80) and in front of Jamaican Veronica Campbell-Brown (10.91), just 0.02 outside of her Dutch record time in winning silver at last year’s world championships in Beijing.
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Once more, it is set to be another fascinating summer for Schippers, the defending 100m and 200m champion ahead of her home European Athletics Championships.
Nicole Büchler broke Switzerland’s indoor pole vault record five times during the winter, ending the season with 4.80m.
And what a way to take that form outdoors.
As she finished second behind American Sandi Morris (4.83m), Büchler extended the national mark by seven centimetres to 4.78m with Greece’s European silver medallist Ekaterini Stefanidi in third (4.73m).
Büchler is fast becoming a contender for the medals this summer and she could not hold back her delight. 'It's just crazy. Everything went perfectly,” she said to lematin.
Nicole Buchler cleared a fine 4.78m in Doha this evening.
— European Athletics (@EuroAthletics) May 6, 2016
That was her 28th Swiss pole vault record to date! pic.twitter.com/Gd6HO9XtY2
Poland’s Piotr Malachowski beat Philip Milanov to gold in the discus at the world championships and as they resumed their rivalry, it was the same again, though both men will be pretty pleased with the outcome from a superb competition.
Just as in Beijing, Belgium’s Milanov broke the national record, this time extending his mark from 66.90m to 67.26m with a fifth round throw that looked to have brought him victory.
But Malachowski showed what a world champion is made of as he responded in the last round with 68.03m, the best in the world this year, as Milanov had a foul, with the pair finishing ahead of South African Victor Hogan (65.59m) and Poland’s Robert Urbanek (65.13).
There was a fine performance, too, from Hungarian shot putter Anita Marton, the European indoor champion, who moved to the top of the European Athletics rankings with 19.22m, taking second behind Tia Brooks (19.48m), of the USA, on a night to remember in third for Türkiye’s 20-year-old Emel Dereli (18.57m), who broke the national record.
And rewriting history extended to the 110m hurdles with Spain's Orlando Ortega running a national record of 13.12 as he finished third behind Jamaican pair Omar McLeod (13.05) and Hansle Parchment (13.10).