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Italy\u2019s annual track and field event promises star-studded 46th edition.<\/p>\n
The 2026 Golden Gala Pietro Mennea, Italy’s flagship athletics meeting, returns to Rome’s Stadio Olimpico on Thursday 4 June.<\/p>\n
The Rome event, which is broadcast live on Italian television channel RAI2, is part\u00a0of the Wanda Diamond League season, an annual series of 14 track and field meetings for top athletes.<\/p>\n
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Now in its 46th year, the Golden Gala is a who\u2019s-who from the world of international athletics,\u00a0hosting 43 athletes who hold Olympic or World Championship gold medals in their career, and more than 80 global medallists in total.<\/p>\n
The\u00a02026 edition\u00a0was presented this week at a press conference at the Stadio Olimpico by the Italian Athletics Federation (Fidal) president\u00a0Stefano Mei\u00a0and meeting director\u00a0Marco Sicari, attended by three of the headline performers: sprint champion\u00a0Marcell Jacobs, long jumper\u00a0Mattia Furlani\u00a0and triple jumper\u00a0Andy Diaz.<\/p>\n
The centrepiece of the programme will be the 100 metres. Alongside the already announced\u00a0Noah Lyles\u00a0and Marcell Jacobs – the last two Olympic 100m champions – the field now includes Botswana’s\u00a0Letsile Tebogo, the Olympic 200m gold medallist; World Indoor champion\u00a0Jordan Anthony\u00a0of the US; reigning World Indoor 60m champion\u00a0Jeremiah Azu\u00a0of the UK; Olympic and World 200m silver medallist\u00a0Kenny Bednarek\u00a0of the US; South Africa’s\u00a0Akani Simbine; and Jamaica’s\u00a0Ackeem Blake.<\/p>\n
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The meeting record stands at 9.75, set by\u00a0Justin Gatlin\u00a0in 2015. The only previous occasion Lyles ran in Rome was in 2019, when he clocked 19.72 over 200 metres – the iconic time set in 1979 by\u00a0Pietro Mennea, to whom the meeting is dedicated.<\/p>\n
Nadia Battocletti\u00a0will headline the women’s programme in the 5,000 metres, entering as world champion after winning gold at the Torun World Indoor Championships over 3,000m. She has set her sights on the European record of 14:13.42, held by\u00a0Sifan Hassan\u00a0– roughly ten seconds faster than the Italian record Battocletti set at the Olimpico\u00a012 months ago. She will face Olympic 3,000m steeplechase champion\u00a0Winfred Yavi\u00a0of Bahrain, as well as a strong Ethiopian contingent including\u00a0Freweyni Hailu\u00a0and\u00a0Hirut Meshesha.<\/p>\n
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In the long jump, 21-year-old Italian\u00a0Mattia Furlani\u00a0will seek his first individual victory at the event. The field amounts to a virtual Olympic final, including the other two Paris medallists – Greece’s\u00a0Miltiadis Tentoglou\u00a0and Jamaica’s\u00a0Wayne Pinnock\u00a0– alongside\u00a0Gerson Bald\u00e9\u00a0of Portugal, who edged Furlani at the Torun World Championships, and the previous Golden Gala winner Liam Adcock.<\/p>\n
The triple jump features\u00a0Andy Diaz, one of seven reigning Diamond League champions present at the meeting. A two-time World Indoor champion and Italian record holder at 17.80m, Diaz has won the Golden Gala twice before – in Florence in 2023 and in Rome in 2024 – and will bid for a third title, an achievement previously accomplished in the event’s Italian history only by steeplechaser\u00a0Alessandro Lambruschini. His main rivals will be Cuba’s\u00a0Lazaro Martinez\u00a0and the other two World Championship medallists from Torun, Jamaica’s\u00a0Jordan Scott\u00a0and Algeria’s\u00a0Yasser Triki.<\/p>\n
Fidal president Mei said athletics was a uniquely global sport, noting that 216 countries are affiliated to World Athletics, and called on fans to fill the stadium to support the Italian competitors.<\/p>\n
CONI president\u00a0Luciano Buonfiglio\u00a0linked the event to\u00a0Italy’s bid to host the World Athletics Championships in Rome<\/a>, while Sport e Salute CEO\u00a0Diego Nepi Molineris, who co-organises the meeting with Fidal, described the Golden Gala as faithful to its founding vision of 1980: to stage a world-class athletics spectacle at the Olimpico.<\/p>\n