Emmanouil Karalis took full advantage of the late withdrawal of Armand Duplantis to win his first Diamond League title in Brussels on Friday (4) evening.
With the world record-holder opting not to compete due to soreness in his leg, Karalis put on a one-man show to win the pole vault title.
After clearing 5.92m on his first attempt to seal the victory, Karalis put further lustre on his evening’s work by clearing 6.12m on his third attempt to break Duplantis’ meeting record by one centimetre.
Karalis won by a Duplantis-esque margin of 30 centimetres. 2023 European indoor champion Sondre Guttormsen from Norway was second with a 5.82m clearance ahead of Australia’s Kurtis Marschall who was third on countback.
"I wanted to have a big battle with Mondo but unfortunately injury is part of our sport. His DNS left the door open for someone else to take the win and I'm delighted to have seized that opportunity. This is is my first Diamond League Final win, a trophy that represents how I'm currently living my dreams," said Karalis.
Duplantis announced his withdrawal just after the warm-up but the hugely popular Swede still addressed the crowd and stopped to pose for selfies with fans before departing from the arena.
"This problem in my leg started in London. It felt OK since then and I put a lot of work in but the pain came back in Zurich. I pushed through it, probably a little bit too much. I said that if I felt this irritation during my warm-up, I wasn't going to jump. Therefore, I made the difficult decision not to start. The worst possible thing to do is having to pull out of a competition," said Duplantis.
Double European champion Kristjan Čeh inflicted another defeat on world record-holder Mykolas Alekna from Lithuania in the men’s discus.
Alekna briefly led with a meeting record of 70.14m in the third round only for the Slovenian - who also won the Mediterranean Games title only four days ago - to respond with another meeting record of 71.29m to seal his second Diamond League title.
"My throws were not perfect. I left two metres in me. I still have two competitions left this season, so hopefully the outcome will be better distance wise. However, I accomplished basically everything that I wished for at the beginning of the season," said Čeh.
By contrast, there was a surprise victory in the men’s high jump for Poland’s Mateusz Kolodziejski who cleared 2.28m to win on countback ahead of 2026 world leader Ju’Vaughn Harrison from the United States.
There was very nearly a final dramatic twist to the contest. Having passed his last two attempts at 2.28m, European champion Gianmarco Tamberi had a very close final attempt at a would-be winning height of 2.31m but the Italian was left visibly frustrated after just brushing the bar off.
1:42.87 European 800m lead for Meziane
France’s Yanis Meziane missed out on a place in the final at the 2026 European Athletics Championships but he had the consolation of setting a 2026 European lead in the men’s 800m.
In a race won by Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi in a meeting record of 1:41.80, Meziane finished just a fraction behind Algeria’s world silver medallist Djamel Sedjati - 1:42.71 to 1:42.87 - in third.
As well as slashing almost one second from his previous lifetime best of 1:43.71, Meziane also displaced European champion Mark English's 1:42.97 clocking from the top of the 2026 European list.
"This was an absolute dream race! At the start of the week I wasn't even qualified for the Diamond League Final. I learned on Tuesday that I had the opportunity to run and I fully took it." said Meziane.
There were also improving signs for European 5000m champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the men's 1500m.
Ingebrigtsen led into the home straight and while he was found wanting for speed again in the last 50 metres, he still improved his season’s best to 3:30.52 to finish fourth in a race won by Australia’s Cameron Myers in 3:30.14.
Quadruple European champion Amy Hunt showed no outward signs of fatigue from a busy series of races as she finished third in the women’s 200m in a season’s best of 22.16 - just 0.08 shy of her lifetime best which she set at the 2025 World Athletics Championships - in a race won by Olympic 100m champion Julien Alfred in 21.79.
One of the best Belgian performances came from Paulien Couckuyt who improved her national record for the third time since finishing fourth at the European Athletics Championships.
Couckuyt improved her mark to 53.20 to finish a close third in the 400m hurdles behind Olympic silver medallist Anna Cockrell from the United States (53.01) and European champion Emma Zapletalová from Slovakia (53.10).
Photos courtesy of Getty Images / James Rhodes