Pre Meet moves to Stanford for 2019

Stanford University’s Cobb Track & Angell Field will host the 45th NIKE Prefontaine Classic/IAAF Diamond League meet

Sunday, June 30th.

With the ongoing construction of Hayward Field in advance of the 2020 US Olympic Team Trials-Track & Field and the 2021 IAAF World Championships, an alternate site for America’s flagship invitational meet was required. After an extensive search in Oregon and along the West Coast, Stanford’s facility was deemed the best choice to host the NIKE Prefontaine Classic, the only member of the prestigious IAAF Diamond League series of meets in the Western Hemisphere.

“Stanford provides the best combination of excellent facilities, good weather, and institutional support that we encountered,” said longtime Meet Director Tom Jordan. “Their Athletics Department administration has been exceptionally welcoming, and we anticipate being able to provide the fans in the stands and the worldwide television audience a Prefontaine Classic worthy of the name.”

The 2019 NIKE Prefontaine Classic/IAAF Diamond League will be televised by host broadcaster NBC, beginning at 1:00 p.m. Pacific Time. Last year’s Pre was viewed over 12 million times by fans around the globe.

The NIKE Prefontaine Classic is the longest-running outdoor invitational track & field meet in America. The meet’s results score has rated No. 1 or No. 2 in the world in each of the last 8 years. NIKE has been the title sponsor of the meet continuously since 1984.

The IAAF Diamond League features the 14 best invitational track & field meetings across Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East and North America with the USA. It is the sport´s global competition outside the World Championships and Olympic Games. The series has a championship style format with athletes winning points at 12 meetings from May through August in order to qualify for the two end of season finals in Zurich and Brussels. 2019 marks the tenth season of the IAAF Diamond League (www.diamondleague.com) and each year the world's best athletes from around 85 countries have competed in the 32 disciplines to crown the Diamond League Champions (#RoadToTheFinals).