Rabat will host the 17th Meeting international Mohammed VI on Sunday, 31 May 2026, and the Moroccan capital will do it with one of its biggest names back on the track. Soufiane El Bakkali has chosen the meeting at the Stade Olympique de Rabat to open his season, turning a scheduled Diamond League stop into the first major test of his year.
The timing gives the day extra weight. The Rabat meeting is the third stage of the 2026 Diamond League, and it brings together athletes from 40 nations across five continents. El Bakkali, a double Olympic and world champion, said his preparation conditions were “qualifiées d’excellentes” and that he wanted to get close to the world record, or at least lower his personal best, in front of a home crowd.
That makes Rabat more than a routine stop on the circuit. Mohamed Ghozlane, the secretary general of the Fédération royale marocaine d’athlétisme, said the edition fits into the 2026 Diamond League calendar, while organizers are also hoping the meeting produces new marks in the stadium, in the Diamond League, or even on the world stage. The lineup helps explain why: Emmanuel Wanyonyi, Quincy Hall, Ryan Crouser, Matt Hudson-Smith, Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Katie Moon, Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Shericka Jackson are all listed among the participants.
The setting has been built to match the ambition. The Stade Olympique de Rabat is being presented as a new sports monument that meets the most demanding international standards, and the meeting’s draw is meant to reinforce both excellence and international visibility for athletics. That is the promise of the day, and it is also the point of friction: the organizers want records, but nothing in the build-up confirms that any of them will actually fall.
What Rabat can confirm, though, is the start of a season and the scale of a meeting that has become one of Morocco’s sharpest athletics showcases. If El Bakkali comes anywhere near the world record he mentioned, the opening race of his year could become the headline the organizers are waiting for.
