Weltklasse Zürich

Weltklasse Zürich is an annual, invitation-only, world-class track and field meeting at the Letzigrund in Zürich, Switzerland, generally held at the end of August or beginning of September. Previously one of the IAAF Golden League events, it now serves as a final of the Wanda Diamond League, alongside Memorial Van Damme between 2010 and 2019. In 2021 and 2022, Weltklasse Zürich served as the sole final of the Diamond League, and this is also planned for 2025 and 2027. So far, 27 world records have been set at Weltklasse Zürich. In 1988, Carl Lewis won the 100-meter duel against Ben Johnson. The time of 9.93 seconds was upgraded to a world record a year later, following Johnson's doping case.

History

The meeting was conceived in 1924 by the athletic section of the FC Zürich which became the Leichtathletik Club Zürich in 1934, and was first held at the Letzigrund on a dirt track on 12 August 1928 as the Internationales Leichtathletik-Meeting in Zürich. Since 1935 it also became known as the "American Meeting", similar to the Bislett Games, and this continued into the 1950s. A notable hiatus occurred after the 1952 meeting until the rebuilt Letzigrund Stadium opened in 1958, although a meeting had still been planned for August 1954. The name "Weltklasse Zürich" was adopted in 1959. The meet would not be held regularly on an annual basis until 1973, and the Weltklasse introduced electronic timing the following year. ==Track surface==

Track surface

The first surface was made of dirt in 1928, and the first synthetic track surface in Europe was installed in 1968. The new surface was installed in June 2014 at a cost of 800,000 CHF and was paid for by the city of Zurich, which owns Letzigrund Stadium. ==Editions==

Editions

Some of the earliest editions were bilateral matches that are not counted among the 29 "Internationales" and Weltklasse meetings organized from 1928 til 1977. ==World records==

World records

Over the course of its history, numerous world records have been set at Weltklasse Zürich. ==Meeting records==

Source: Wikipedia ↗

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