Jack Buckner, CEO of UK Athletics, speaks to the media. 

Take the Diamond League this year, I was amazed. It was just a massive step forward from the previous year. Everyone who was there, the energy, made it feel like we could make the Diamond League like our Silverstone [FI British Grand Prix].  It’s already the most significant one-day athletics meet in the world. Some of the ideas discussed for next year will raise the bar again in that event. And we can make that event the best athletics meeting in the world. Many innovative ideas exist, and we’re already ahead of ticket sales. We’re over 40,000 sold for 2025, significantly ahead of where we were this year. And that’s without some of the innovation and announcements we will bring out in the new year. So I think the Diamond League will be key, and if that becomes, as it were, our Silverstone,  it will sweep up many of the issues we have positively.  Also, we’ve just presented our update on the Birmingham 2026 European Championships to European Athletics, and once again, there’s lots of innovation within that.

But there’s still more work to do. The Diamond League in London attracts a huge, diverse family audience. That’s the audience you get, and you know that’s the audience that fits the Diamond League, making it the big athletics day for us.

Last year worked perfectly in the run into the Olympics. Matt Hudson-Smith, European record. Keely’s personal best was also there. There’s more work to do, but it does not necessarily attract a more peripheral athletics audience. We’re looking to all those things, and as we develop and get some new ideas, we’re thinking through what other things we could do… how to tighten it up as a concept, and what other things we could do,…