 Let's talk some track and field now on the Sportsmax Zone, the 2024 Wanda Diamond League season kicked off in Manchina on Saturday with the indomitable Swede Armand de Plantis starting the season the way he ended the 2023 campaign that's with a world record. Yes, the plant is sore to 6.24 meters to set a new mark in the men's pole vault, improving on the 6.23 meters he set at the Diamond League finals in Eugene last year. Meanwhile, Bohemian Devine Charlton was the best-placed English-speaking Caribbean athlete finishing second in the 100-meter hurdles in 12.46 seconds. The event was won by Puerto Rico's Olympic champion Jasmin Camacho-Quinn in 12.45. The reigning world champion Jamecas Daniel-Bulliams was fourth in 12.56. Akin Blake was the only other podium finisher for the Caribbean, clocking a season's best 10.20 seconds for third in the men's 100 meters. He finished behind Americans Christian Coleman 10.13 and Fred Curley 10.17 seconds. Season's best performance for Coleman, the world indoor champion at 60 meters. Lanzin Wright was good to see the Diamond League back, it's the earliest ever start to a Diamond League campaign because we're accustomed to seeing the start of the Diamond League in Doha in May, but we have a couple of meets now in China, first one in Zamen on Saturday and then Shanghai will be next week Saturday and yes, some good performances, but Devine Charlton, the best from the Caribbean with that 12.46 performance. Before I get to that though, Diplantis, what a performer he is. This man has broken the world record eight times. He's won the last five global titles, that's the Olympic title, two world indoor titles and two world outdoor titles. He's dominated his event. There is no equal to him. And by the way, there are those who would wonder, okay, why does he only break the world record by one centimeter because he's broken the world record eight times. He's gone 6.17, 6.18, 6.19, 6.20, 6.21, 6.22, 6.23 and now 6.24. But why no record, for real? Because this is what track and field athletes have to do to maximize on their money. And in an event where you can determine what the mark is, then it becomes very easy to do as opposed to a running event. So usually in a lot of the contracts for the athletes, they will have bonuses for certain performances including winning titles and breaking records. So I suspect every time he breaks the world record, there's a bonus there for him. So it is not in his best interest, let's say go out this week and jump 6.35 meters and then he can't break that for another three or four years if ever again. So he does it in increments because he's ensuring that he picks up those bonuses, I'm sure. But Ricardo, you get what I'm saying, right? You just called all the numbers. It's so precise. It's like... Because he's only looking to improve the world record by one centimeter every time. And that's what he's done. Airtime started at 6.17 and he's not 6.24. And you can see the confidence that he starts of course with. You know, he's oozing with confidence. He recognizes that he's in a class of his own. And I mean, if the stats don't say it all, the fact that he's broken this record eight times. So like I looked at the performance and just the way he comes up, it's as if Ricardo, he knows he's going to get this done and then move along. So I think, you know, there's no stopping him. I look forward though, if somebody can challenge him. It's not going to happen. But that's exactly. Injury aside, the only way I think he loses at the Olympic Games this year, for example, is if he gets complacent. And we've seen it before in these events. I remember Yelena Issenbaeva, because she dominated the women's pole vault in similar fashion and set multiple world records. I think she had gotten up to well over 20 world records. Yelena Issenbaeva, she was stunning. But there was one particular global championship where she came into the competition late. She failed, I think, the first time and she decided, well, I'll just go higher. And I think she finished down the field that time. I think it only happened once, but it would have to be that type of complacency that denies Monde de Plantes, the Olympic title, a second Olympic title, by the way, in Paris this summer. What happened on Saturday, what that illustrates to me is just his overall dominance of the event, because typically people don't break world records in April. The outdoor season hasn't even fully started yet, so it just tells you that he's way ahead of the game. And he'll likely break the world record again more times before the season is up. Yeah, as many times as I think he wants to. I'll also say this, I don't understand where the pole vault world record is coming from. Sergey Bukka, who dominated the event in the 90s, he set the record at 6.14 in 1994. That wasn't broken until 2014 by the Frenchman, Renaud La Villainy. And now you see de Plantes just taking the event to new heights. Talking about new heights, Devin Charlton, 1246. We always knew that after her indoor campaign, that the expectation was that she would get better outdoors. And it's a very good start to her campaign. Well, she led for about 80 metres. Not surprising. Yeah, which is her typical style. But strong finish there from Camacho Quinn, who was powerful in the last 20 metres to get the win. Of course, she's a reigning Olympic champion, pretty, pretty solid as well, big and strong. And, you know, the 100 metre hurdles just continues to excite, because, you know, we still have a couple of months before the Olympic Games. And no one knows who's going to win the gold medal in Paris. Because it's close. Do you? The silver or the bronze or who will be in the final. And that's the thing about the women's 100 hurdles. There is so much depth. There is so much quality. I think it has. This is the event with the greatest depth in track and field. Without a doubt, yeah. And I was thinking about it today and I'm saying to myself, when you get to the major championship, you can have an athlete looking supreme in the first round and come the semi-finals. They don't get into the final or an athlete looking great at the semi-final stage and come the final, they can't get a medal. Because what happens, it's an event that requires precision. And because of the depth right across the world, if you make even a small mistake, you have enough quality around you to capitalise. In many events, you'll have athletes, they are so good. Or because the event may not require that much precision, you can make mistakes along the way and recover from them. Either because you don't have any other competitor with the quality to take advantage, or you are just that good. In the women's sprint herders, that's not the case. Yeah, I think that's the difference between who wins and who doesn't because everybody has been so up to par. Last year in Budapest was a good example of what you're talking about, Ricardo, because no one expected Daniel Williams to win the gold medal, except her, because she said she was confident she would have won. And her coach, but onlookers and experts didn't see her winning, and she won well. And that was quite a field. That field had the world record holder, the reigning world champion, the Olympic champion, the number one in the world, the world... Well, no, the world indoor champion wasn't there at the time, but the world indoor silver medalist at the time, Devine Charlton, was a field, I mean, just with oozing with quality. And it was Daniel Williams who was down the pecking order for that entire season, who came up and won the gold medal. 2008, when Don Harper won the gold medal. Lola Jones was the big name for the entire season and the likes of Brigitte Foster-Hilton and Susanna Kallore. Harper wasn't big and strong, she was strong. But who was big and strong? Harper. She was strong. Oh. Yeah. All right. Break time? Yeah.