{"id":1672,"date":"2025-03-18T19:25:03","date_gmt":"2025-03-18T19:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/about\/meeting-information\/"},"modified":"2025-04-08T17:49:56","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T17:49:56","slug":"meeting-information","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/about\/meeting-information\/","title":{"rendered":"History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\">Golden Gala, the stars in Rome since 1980<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Golden Gala is the most important international athletics meeting in Italy and one of the most exciting events in the framework of Rome&#8217;s sporting events. The Golden Gala was born in <strong>1980<\/strong> thanks to the intuition of <strong>Primo Nebiolo<\/strong>, then president of the FIDAL, who understood how, in the year of the boycott of many countries at the Moscow Olympics, Rome could become the scene of spectacular challenges and give the opportunity, to those who had been left out of the Games, to take revenge. Pietro <strong>Mennea<\/strong> and Sara <strong>Simeoni<\/strong> were there that night, but more importantly, there were <strong>60,000 people crow<\/strong> ding the Olympic Stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All the great champions of the last three decades have passed through here, and historic pages of world athletics have been experienced, such as that of <strong>1984<\/strong>, the magical night of the pole vault when Sergey <strong>Bubka<\/strong> (Urs) and Thierry <strong>Vigneron<\/strong> (Fra) challenged each other to world records in their ascent to the sky, up to the 5.94 of the then Soviet champion, who also attempted the 6 meters he would later surpass. Since then the Golden Gala has offered many world records: in <strong>1987<\/strong> Moroccan Said <strong>Aouita <\/strong>broke the historic 13-minute wall in the 5,000 by stopping the stopwatches at a time of 12:58.39. That was only the first of many times recorded under 13 minutes. In <strong>1995<\/strong> the race recorded another world record, this time by Kenyan Moses <strong>Kiptanui<\/strong>, a great &#8220;free running&#8221; 3000 steeplechase specialist over the flat distance, which he covered in the fantastic time of 12:55.30.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As many as two world records were achieved in Rome by the great Hicham <strong>El Guerrouj<\/strong>. In <strong>1998<\/strong> the Moroccan champion sealed a science fiction performance in the 1500 meters, in a time of 3:26.00, still unbeaten today. The following year the Maghrebi runner also improved that in the mile, taking it to 3:43.13 thanks in part to the stimulus of young Kenyan opponent Ngeny. The year 2000 was kissed by Norwegian Trine <strong>Hattestad<\/strong> &#8216;s record in the javelin (68.22). And another fantastic world record came in <strong>2008<\/strong>, when pole vault queen Yelena <strong>Isinbaeva<\/strong> (Russia) flew to five meters and zero three of her umpteenth record. <br><br>Since 2010, the Golden Gala has been part of the <strong>Diamond League<\/strong>, the world&#8217;s leading one-day meeting circuit. In <strong>2013<\/strong>, the event was named after Olympian and former 200-meter world record holder Pietro <strong>Mennea<\/strong>, who died prematurely in March of that year. This was the third consecutive appearance at the Olympic Stadium by speed legend Usain <strong>Bolt<\/strong>. In 2020, a 40th anniversary celebration postponed until September because of the pandemic, the Golden Gala was lit up by the 6.15 of Swedish pole vault master Armand <strong>Duplantis<\/strong>, at that time the best outdoor performance of any era. The last world record in 2023 was signed by Kenya&#8217;s Faith <strong>Kipyegon<\/strong> in the 1,500 (3:49.11), in the second edition held in Florence after the one in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>GOLDEN GALA WORLD RECORDS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pole Vault<\/strong> &#8211; Thierry Vigneron (FRA) <strong>5.83<\/strong> &#8211; 01\/09\/1983<br><strong>Pole Vault <\/strong>&#8211; Thierry Vigneron (FRA) <strong>5.91<\/strong> &#8211; 31\/08\/1984<br><strong>Pole Vault<\/strong> &#8211; Sergey Bubka (URS) <strong>5.94<\/strong> &#8211; 31\/08\/1984<br><strong>5000<\/strong> &#8211; Said Aouita (MAR) <strong>12:58.39<\/strong> &#8211; 22\/07\/1987<br><strong>5000<\/strong> &#8211; Moses Kiptanui (KEN) <strong>12:55.30<\/strong> &#8211; 08\/06\/1995<br><strong>1500<\/strong> &#8211; Hicham El Guerrouj (MAR) <strong>3:26.00<\/strong> &#8211; 14\/07\/1998<br><strong>Mile<\/strong> &#8211; Hicham El Guerrouj (MAR) <strong>3:43.13<\/strong> &#8211; 07\/07\/1999<br><strong>Javelin<\/strong> <strong>Throw<\/strong> &#8211; Trine Hattestad (NOR) <strong>68.22<\/strong> &#8211; 30\/06\/2000<br><strong>Pole Vault<\/strong> &#8211; Yelena Isinbaeva (RUS) <strong>5.03<\/strong> &#8211; 11\/07\/2008<br><strong>Pole Vault<\/strong> &#8211; Armand Duplantis (SVE) <strong>6.15<\/strong> &#8211; 17\/9\/2020 &#8211; Best outdoor performance<br><strong>1500<\/strong> &#8211; Faith Kipyegon (KEN) <strong>3:49.11<\/strong> &#8211; 02\/06\/2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Golden Gala, the stars in Rome since 1980 The Golden Gala is the most important international...","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"parent":1669,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-about.blade.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"city":[],"class_list":["post-1672","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1672"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1672\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1833,"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1672\/revisions\/1833"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rome.diamondleague.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=1672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}