World Athletics Championships
The World Athletics Championships, known as the IAAF World Championships in Athletics until 2019, are a biennial athletics competition organized by World Athletics, formerly International Association of Athletics Federations. 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. Separate World Championships are held by World Athletics for certain other outdoor events, including cross-country running and half-marathon, as well as indoor and age-group championship.
The World Championships were started in 1976 in response to the International Olympic Committee dropping the men's 50 km walk from the Olympic programme for the 1976 Montreal Olympics, despite its constant presence at the games since 1932. The IAAF chose to host its own world championship event, a month and a half after the Olympics. It was the first World Championships that the IAAF had hosted separately from the Olympic Games.
A second limited event was held in 1980, and the inaugural championships in 1983, with all the events, is considered the official start of the competition. Until 1980, the Olympic champions were also considered as reigning world champions.
At their debut, these championships were then held every four years, until 1991 when they switched to a two-year cycle. In 2024, World Athletics announced that the new biennial competition, World Athletics Ultimate Championship, featuring only up to 16 of the world's top-ranked athletes per discipline, would be held every even year from 2026 onwards.
History
The idea of having an Athletics World Championships was around well before the competition's first event in 1983. In 1913, the IAAF decided that the Olympic Games would serve as the World Championships for athletics. This was considered suitable for over 50 years until in the late 1960s the desire of many IAAF members to have their own World Championships began to grow. In 1976 at the IAAF Council Meeting in Puerto Rico an Athletics World Championships separate from the Olympic Games was approved.Following bids from both Stuttgart, West Germany and Helsinki, Finland, the IAAF Council awarded the inaugural competition to Helsinki, to take place in 1983 and be held in the Helsinki Olympic Stadium.
Two IAAF world championship events preceded the inaugural edition of the World Championships in Athletics in 1983. 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. Four years later, the 1980 World Championships contained only two newly approved women's events,, neither of which featured on the programme for the 1980 Summer Olympics.
Over the years the competition has grown in size. In 1983 1,333 athletes from 153 countries participated. By the 2003 competition, in Paris, it had grown to 1,679 athletes from 198 countries with coverage being transmitted to 179 countries.
From 2019 to 2022 the championships were sponsored by Qatar National Bank, which has been described as being part of Qatar's soft power policy.
There has also been a change in composition over the years, with several new events, all for women, being added. 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.
Changes in the list of events were as follows:
- 1987: women's 10,000 m and 10 km walk added
- 1993: women's triple jump added
- 1995: women's 3,000 m replaced by 5000 m
- 1999: women's pole vault and hammer added; women's 20 km walk replaced 10 km walk
- 2005: women's 3000 m steeplechase added
- 2017: women's 50 km walk added
- 2019: mixed 4 × 400 m relay added
- 2022: men's and women's 35 km walk replaced 50 km walk
Championships
| Edition | Year | City | Country | Date | Venue | Capacity | Events | Nations | Athletes | Top of the medal table | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| – | 1976 | Malmö |  SwedenAll-time medal tableUpdated after the 2025 World Athletics Championships.Source: ;Notes is the name under which Russian athletes competed in the 2017 and 2019 Championships. Their medals were not included in the official medal table. All-time placing tableIn the IAAF placing table the total score is obtained from assigning eight points to the first place and so on to one point for the eight placed finalists. Points are shared in situations where a tie occurs. However, the IAAF site shows all points rounded to the nearest integer.Updated after the 2022 Championships
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