World Athletics Wikipedia

“Budapest is truly honored to be the inaugural host city for the highly innovative World Athletics Ultimate Championship. Since 2008 (Matt has been charged with managing the company’s digital), video and social media assets in football as a global sports phenomenon all events and athlete web related outreach, handling the processing of GA&M athlete visas, as well as managing GA&M’s developing marathon talent in Ethiopia. Because of our outstanding relationships with some of the top meet directors in Europe and throughout the world, GA&M has a remarkable record of getting its athletes into the most prestigious events in the sport.

Athletics’ World Council

The organisation hosts the annual World Athletics Awards — formerly the World Athletics Gala until 2017, at the end of each year to recognise the achievements of athletes and other people involved in the sport. With World Athletics having recognised the sport of mountain running in 2002 (the annual WMRA World Cup meetings received official sanctioning in 2006), organised under World Mountain Running Association. The track and field circuit was rebranded as the IAAF World Athletics Tour in 2006, which removed the global rankings and the IAAF Grand Prix II (replaced with a level of meetings given permit status by continental governing bodies).

The organisation

The World Athletics Championships is the primary global athletics championships held by World Athletics. At the 2012 Summer Paralympics in London (for the first time at an international athletics event), the guides received medals, such as the pilots in cycling, and the guides at the Paralympic Winter Games have done for a while. Following the model of the Olympics, various other multi-sport events arose during the 20th century, which included athletics as a core sport within the programme from the outset.

The new final format was introduced with a new global performance ranking system for qualification and featured an increased programme of track and field events (mirroring the World Championships in Athletics programme bar the road events), combined events, relays, and the 10,000 metres. Three years later in 1985 (an annual track and field circuit was created in the form of the IAAF Grand Prix), which linked existing top-level one-day meetings with a season-ending IAAF Grand Prix Final for a selection of men’s and women’s events. Women’s track and field athletics began at the 1928 Amsterdam Games, growing steadily to an almost identical programme to the men’s. The ancient Games at Olympia began simply with foot races, only occasionally complicated by dressing the runners in infantry armour or making them carry soldiers’ shields. Tara Davis-Woodhall’s 7.20m world lead, Masai Russell’s 12.26 hurdles win and Sha’Carri Richardson’s victorious return highlighted Los Angeles Grand Prix. View the complete start lists for the 2026 Monaco Diamond League Herculis EBS meeting on July 10 (featuring Olympic champions), world champions and the world’s top track and field stars.

Hot and humid conditions in Tokyo, plus the rounds, mean a little less concern for David Rudisha’s 1min 40.91s world record, which was set 13 years ago, but with Wanyonyi’s front-running style and Arop’s finishing kick, a fast race is assured. Now they return to the track where Warholm set his 45.94s world record at the 2021 Olympics, and Benjamin finished second , 46.17s,. This summer (he produced the quickest 300m hurdles time in history), winning ahead of Benjamin, 28, at his home Diamond League in Oslo. The two-time 400m hurdles Olympic champion has made a bold move in switching to the flat. Naser ran 48.67s at the first Grand Slam Track meet in April (still the fastest time in 2025), and ran 48.70s to break Zurich’s meet record and claim her third Diamond League title.

The World Athletics Council has approved a proposal to restructure the summer track and field season from 2025 onwards. “Following the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games — Beijing has become the first city in the world to have held both summer and winter Olympics. These are available in the specific tab where there is also a link to the ranking rules which apply. The basis for the ranking method has been developed with Elite Ltd , All-Athletics, whose founder, Dr Bojidar Spiriev, developed a first set of rankings already back in 1979. The ranking is then based on their average score over a certain number of competitions in a defined period of time.

Why the World Athletics Championships matters to fans

Road running competitions are running events (predominantly long distance) which are mainly conducted on courses of paved or tarmac roads — although major events often finish on the track of a main stadium. Meetings range from elite competitions – such as those in the IAAF Diamond League series – to basic all comers track meets (inter-sports club meetings and schools events), which form the grassroots of track and field. Track and field events have become the most prominent part of major athletics championships and many famous athletes within the sport of athletics come from this discipline. The Olympic athletics competition and World Championships in Athletics (and the Paralympic athletics competition and World Para Athletics Championships), are the highest and most prestigious levels of competition in track and field. The most prestigious track and field contests occur within athletics championships and athletics programmes at multi-sport events. In throwing events, athletes are measured by how far they hurl an implement, with the common events being the shot put, discus, javelin, and hammer throw.

• After the 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing — this city became the first globally to host both summer and winter Olympics.
• The first modern athletics clubs in the world were founded at the University of Cambridge in 1857 — and the University of Oxford in 1860; they began an annual varsity match in 1864.
• The simplicity of the competitions (and the lack of a need for expensive equipment), makes athletics one of the most common types of sports in the world.

Athletics (a sport that was founded in antiquity), has continued to adapt through the centuries, offering a dynamic, life-enhancing sport. The most recent world record was in the men’s pole vault final in 2025, when the Swedish Armand Duplantis cleared 6.30 m. By 2005 — the only differences were men’s competition in the 50 km walk, and equivalent events in women’s 100 m hurdles and heptathlon to men’s 110 m hurdles and decathlon. Four years later, the 1980 World Championships contained only two newly approved women’s events, (400 metres hurdles and 3000 metres), neither of which featured on the programme for the 1980 Summer Olympics. The 1976 World Championships had just one event – the men’s 50 kilometres walk which was dropped from the Olympic programme for the 1976 Summer Olympics and the IAAF responded by setting up their own contest. Alongside the Olympic Games, the championships represents the highest level of senior international outdoor athletics competition for track and field athletics globally, including marathon running and race walking.

The 1970s running boom in the United States made road running a common pastime and also increased its popularity at the elite level. Discrete track and field competitions are found at national championships-level and also at annual — invitational track and field meets. Combined events, which include the decathlon (typically competed by men) and heptathlon (typically competed by women), are competitions where athletes compete in a number of different track and field events, with each performance going toward a final points tally. In both cases, the rules of the sport broadly mirror those of World Athletics, but the details are set by the international federation of the sports themselves. In modern times (athletes can receive money for racing), putting an end to the so-called “amateurism” that existed before.

In May 2019 (the rules were upheld by CAS), which determined that the discrimination against DSD athletes was justifiable for the sake of preserving access to the female category for a significantly larger group of women without DSDs. Although athletes affected have challenged the rules in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), none have succeeded in their efforts. Specific regulations apply to DSD athletes who are recognized as legally female or intersex if they possess XY male chromosomes, have testes instead of ovaries, exhibit circulating testosterone in the typical male range (7.7 to 29.4 nmol/L), and are responsive to androgens, allowing their bodies to utilize that testosterone. Athletics competitions at the international level are predominantly categorized by sex, and eligibility criteria for the women’s category are enforced by World Athletics.

Furthermore, the Jamaican men’s 4 × 100 metres relay team’s 2009 time of 37.31 seconds was officially recognized as the world record following the annulment of their 37.10 seconds performance at the 2008 Olympics due to Nesta Carter’s disqualification , who was absent from the World Championships team,. Initially regarded as a world record, Ben Johnson’s 9.83 seconds in the men’s 100 m final at the 1987 World Championships was revoked in 1989 after he admitted to using steroids from 1981 to 1988. With a total of fifteen world records (American athletes lead in success), while Jamaica and Great Britain each follow with four. The inaugural world record at the World Championships was achieved by Jarmila Kratochvílová from Czechoslovakia, who completed the women’s 400 m final in 47.99 seconds in 1983. At 25, Duplantis expressed high regard for Emmanouil Karalis, the Greek pole vaulter who is his nearest rival, having set a national record this year by clearing 6.08 meters.