IAAF replaces New York Diamond League meet with Rabat

Rabat replaces New York City in IAAF Diamond League.

Author:
SI Wire
Publish date:
Mar 3, 2016

The Adidas Grand Prix on Randall's Island in New York will no longer be a part of the IAAF Diamond League series, the track and field governing body announced on Thursday.

The New York track meet will be replaced with the The Meeting International Mohammed VI which is annually held in the Moroccan capital of Rabat. The move adds Africa as one of four continents in which the series is contested on.

"We are pleased to be able to take our premier athletics series into a new continental area,” IAAF president Seb Coe said in a statement. “The IAAF Diamond League offers the best athletics entertainment to the world outside of the IAAF World Championships and the Olympic Games. Broadcast annually in over 120 countries, the series provides Athletics with its next most prominent global shop window. We thank New York for contributing to this great project during the last six seasons and know that they will continue to support Athletics in the future. We proudly welcome the inclusion of Rabat.”

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The New York Diamond League meet will shift into a city street event in June and will feature elite distance and sprint races along with field events. The Dream Mile, which has become a marquee event of the high school season as high school boys look to break four-minutes for the mile, will still also be contested.

Plans for the revised New York meet will be announced in April.

Adidas CEO Herbert Hainer told reporters that the sports apparel company has not terminated its contract with the IAAF as it monitors the sports’ anti-doping reforms, according to Sara Germano of the Wall Street Journal.