The 50th edition of the Allianz Memorial Van Damme kicked off in Brussels on Friday night, with Belgian royalty King Philippe, Queen Mathilde and Prince Gabriel in attendance at the iconic King Baudouin Stadium. When the dust settled on the women’s 200m final, it was Saint Lucia’s sprinting star Julien Alfred who once again stood atop the podium, securing her third straight Wanda Diamond League title in breathtaking fashion.
Alfred, the 25-year-old rising star hailing from Ciceron, delivered a masterclass in competitive running to cross the finish line in 21.79 seconds, with a mild tailwind of just 0.1 meters per second aiding her run. The performance thrilled the packed stadium crowd, capping off another remarkable display from one of the world’s most dominant sprinters.
Going into the race, Alfred already held the two fastest 200m times recorded globally in the 2026 season, and Friday’s result still ranks as the seventh-fastest mark of the year for the discipline. This race will also mark Alfred’s final 200m outing of the season, as the sprinter has confirmed she will shift her full focus to the 100m event at next weekend’s World Athletics Ultimate Championship, scheduled to take place in Budapest.
Starting from the less favorable Lane 6, Alfred faced immediate pressure from American sprinter Kayla White through the first bend. Alfred clocked a solid 0.166-second reaction time out of the starting blocks, and covered the opening 100m in 11.25 seconds, putting her just behind White, who stopped the clock at 11.18 seconds, and Britain’s Amy Hunt, who ran 11.24 seconds over the first half-lap.
But Alfred’s biggest strength has long been her elite speed endurance, and that quality shone through as the field entered the homestretch. By the 160-meter mark, Alfred had pulled even with the leading pack, hitting 160m in 17.37 seconds to White’s 17.41 seconds. She then put on a devastating surge over the final 40 meters, pulling clear of the entire field to win by a comfortable margin of more than two-tenths of a second.
White held on to claim second place with a time of 22.00 seconds, while Hunt rounded out the podium in third, clocking a new season’s best of 22.16 seconds.
Friday’s Diamond Trophy win caps what has been an absolutely dominant season for Alfred, who already claimed the Olympic 100m gold medal at the 2024 Paris Games. She has only suffered one defeat in outdoor races this season, arriving in Brussels fresh off a blistering 10.70-second 100m performance at Zürich’s Letzigrund just days earlier, following on from a 21.52-second 200m run in Monaco last month. With just one major race remaining on her 2026 calendar, Alfred heads into the World Athletics Ultimate Championship as one of the clear favorites to take home the 100m crown.