The first day of the annual Weltklasse meeting will see six Diamond League champions crowned on Sechselautenplatz, the famous city square on the shore of Lake Zurich, before the remaining 26 titles are decided on the second day of competition within the Letzigrund Stadium.

As well as Diamond trophies and first prizes of $30,000 (£26,000/€ 30,300) - in events where qualification has been earned by performances in the previous 12 Diamond League meetings but the winners take all on the night - there are also wildcard entries on offer for next year's World Athletics Championships in Budapest.

The lakeside action will feature, among others, the joint Olympic men’s high jump champions Mutaz Barshim of Qatar and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi, who last met at the latter's wedding at the start of this month – with Tamberi telling a press conference today that he had delayed his honeymoon in order to defend his title.

World and Olympic men's shot put champion Ryan Crouser, who suffered his first outdoor defeat since 2019 at the Diamond League meeting in Lausanne on August 26, will face the fellow American who beat him in Switzerland, and in the Doha 2019 World Championships Athletissima - Joe Kovacs.

Crouser revealed today that he had considered ending his season after a particularly nasty bout of COVID-19.

Also on day one a temporary course around the Zurich Opera House will be a women’s 5,000m featuring Ethiopia's world indoor 1500m champion Gudaf Tsegay and Olympic 5,000 and 10,000m champion Sifan Hassan of The Netherlands.

One of the strongest favourites in the stadium on Friday will be Sweden's world and Olympic champion Mondo Duplantis, who improved his world record to 6.21m in July but will be seeking to return to business as usual after his long winning run was ended at last week’s Brussels Diamond League by Ernest Obiena of the Philippines, who is also in the field.

In the women’s triple jump, Yulimar Rojas of Venezuela, the world and Olympic champion, who improved the world record to 15.74m in winning this year’s world title, is similarly favoured to win.

Her closest challenger is likely to be Ukraine’s Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk, who set a personal best of 15.02m to win the European title in Munich last month.

The world indoor silver medallist, who was runner-up in the long jump at the 2019 World Championships in Doha, is set to contest both events in Zurich - the triple jump at 5:35pm before the long jump at 8pm local time.

Norway’s 21-year-old Jakob Ingebrigtsen, world 5,000m champion and Olympic and European gold medallist at the men’s 1500m, will seek a first Diamond League title in the later distance.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, whose winning run over 100m was ended by fellow Jamaican and world 200m champion Shericka Jackson at the Lausanne Diamond League meeting, will meet her rival again over the shorter distance.

Jackson plans to double in the 200m, a distance at which men’s runner Noah Lyles of the United States, the double world champion, will seek to earn a fifth Diamond League trophy.

Three weeks after winning three gold medals at the European Championships, Dutch 400m hurdler Femke Bol will attempt to win her second successive Diamond Trophy.

The Olympic bronze medallist has won all but one of her races this year, her only defeat coming at the hands of Sydney McLaughlin at the World Championships.

But with the American having apparently ended her season, Bol will be super-confident.

In the men’s 800m, Britain’s world 1500m champion Jake Wightman, who beat world and Olympic champion Emmanuel Korir in Brussels last week in a Scottish record of 1min 43.65sec, will take on the Kenyan again over two laps..

In the women’s 800m final Britain’s European champion Keely Hodgkinson will face the Kenyan who beat her to the Commonwealth title in Birmingham - Mary Moraa.

In the men’s triple jump, Portugal’s world and Olympic champion Pedro Pichardo, seeking his third consecutive Diamond League title, will take on the rising force of young jumpers from his country of origin, Cuba, notably world indoor champion Lazaro Martinez.

In what she describes as her "most difficult season", Ukraine’s 20-year-old high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh, who escaped her native city under Russian bombardment earlier this year before driving for three days to Belgrade before winning the world indoor title, will bid to add another flourish to a season in which, at last week’s Brussels meeting, she equalled the national record of 2.05m.

In the men’s discus, Sweden’s Olympic champion Daniel Stahl will aim to earn a third successive Diamond Trophy against a field including Kristjan Ceh of Slovenia, who won the world title in July.

There will be a similar clash of alpha-personalities in the women’s discus, where Olympic champion Valarie Allman of the US takes on double Olympic and recently European champion Sandra Perkovic of Croatia.

Having become the first Indian athlete to win in a Diamond League meeting - something he did in Lausanne last month - Neeraj Chopra, the Olympic javelin champion, will look for another title to add to his name.

Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan produced one of the biggest surprises of the World Championships when she set a world record of 12.12 in the semi-finals of the women’s 100m hurdles, following it with a wind-assisted 12.06 in the final to win gold.

She went on to win the Commonwealth title in Birmingham in a Games record of 12.30.

Since taking bronze at the World Championships, though, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn has been undefeated.

Puerto Rico’s Olympic champion won in Stockholm, Silesia, Lausanne and Brussels, setting meeting records at the three most recent meetings, and beating Amusan in Lausanne.

Kenya’s two-time world and Olympic champion Faith Kipyegon is looking to cap an undefeated season at 1500m, and a win in Zurich would mean a third Diamond Trophy for the Kenyan middle-distance runner.

Kenya’s 18-year-old Commonwealth champion Jackline Chepkoech will be a favourite in the women’s 3.000m steeplechase, while in the men’s 110m hurdles double world champion Grant Holloway of the US will face Jamaica’s Olympic champion Hansle Parchment will square off in the 110m hurdles in Zurich, but Jamaica’s Rasheed Broadbell could perhaps be the biggest danger.