2013 World Championships in Athletics


The 14th IAAF World Championships in Athletics was an international athletics competition held in Moscow, Russia, from 10 to 18 August 2013. Initially, Russia won the most gold medals to top the table for the first time since 2001. It was also the first time ever the host nation took the top of the medal table. However, following the disqualification of Russian sprinter Antonina Krivoshapka for doping and after the redistribution of medals in the Women's 4 × 400 metres relay, the United States moved to the top of the medal table with eight golds. In the overall medal count, the United States won 26 medals in total, followed by Kenya with 12. With 1,784 athletes from 203 countries it was the biggest single sports event of the year. The number of spectators for the evening sessions was 268,548 surpassing Daegu 2011.
Jamaica's Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce both won three gold medals in the men's and women's 100 metres, 200 metres and 4 × 100 metres relay respectively to become the most successful athletes at the event. This achievement also earned Bolt the title of being the most successful athlete in the history of the World Championships with eight gold and two silver medals. Prior to the competition, four sprinters were banned on doping charges.

Bidding process

When the seeking deadline passed on 1 December 2006, four candidate cities had confirmed their candidatures. These were: Barcelona, Brisbane, Moscow and Gothenburg. The IAAF announced Moscow the winning candidate at the IAAF Council Meeting in Mombasa on 27 March 2007.
Gothenburg backed out already in December, citing lack of financial support from the Swedish government. Barcelona had a record of hosting the 1992 Summer Olympics and the 1995 IAAF World Indoor Championships. It was chosen over Madrid and Valencia, which were at one point outlined as possible candidates..
Brisbane simultaneously bid for 2011 and 2013 World Championships with the primary focus being on the 2011 event. Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre was the proposed venue. The venue had hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games and 2001 Goodwill Games. It was also a failed bidder for the 2009 World Championships in Athletics, which was eventually won by Berlin.
In the case of Moscow, Deputy Mayor Valery Vinogradov announced on 13 March 2006 that the city would bid for the 2011 Championships and suggested Luzhniki Stadium as venue. When the IAAF elected to decide the 2011 and 2013 events at the same meeting, Moscow added its name to the 2013 list. The city had hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics and the 2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships.

Venue

Main venue was Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow with a capacity of 78,360 spectators.

Event schedule

Day by day event schedule of the 2013 championships
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Event summary

The championships featured 3 championship records, 22 world leadings, 2 area records, 48 national records but no world records. In addition to gold medals, individual winners received prize money of $60,000 where as members of winning relay teams received $20,000.

Men

of Jamaica moved to the top of the all-time World Championships medal table by winning three gold medals. He won the 100 metres, the 200 metres, and Jamaica won the 4 × 100 metres relay behind a strong anchor leg from Bolt who passed the United States' Justin Gatlin down the stretch. It was Bolt's second three gold performance at the World Championships. After the meet, his career total stood at 8 golds and 2 silvers, narrowly surpassing Carl Lewis' 8 golds, 1 silver, and 1 bronze. Trinidad and Tobago's Jehue Gordon edged America's Michael Tinsley by a hundredth of a second to win the 400-metres hurdles. It was the first gold for Trinidad and Tobago since 1997. Serbia's Emir Bekrić took bronze in national record time. Félix Sánchez, competing for the Dominican Republic, also made the final of the event, marking his seventh consecutive World Championship 400-metre hurdles final.
Great Britain's Mo Farah won the 5000 and 10,000 metres to become the second man in history to win both events at both the World Champions and the Olympics. The only man to do it before had been Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia. Stephen Kiprotich of Uganda became the first non-Kenyan to win the marathon at the World Championships since 2005. It was also Uganda's first men's title in the history of the event. Kiprotich became only the second man, after Gezahegne Abera, to follow an Olympic marathon gold medal with a world championship marathon gold medal. Ethiopians Lelisa Desisa and Tadese Tola took second and third respectively.
In the high jump, Bohdan Bondarenko set a Championship record of 2.41 en route to a gold medal in a highly competitive final. Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar took second and Derek Drouin set a Canadian national record while winning bronze.

Track

Field

Women

became the first woman in World Championships history to sweep the sprint events when anchored Jamaica to gold in the 4 × 100-metres relay. Jamaica's time of 41.29 set a Championships record. Earlier in the meet, Fraser-Pryce won the 100 metres and the 200 metres. In the final of the 200 metres, Allyson Felix tore her right hamstring. A photo-finish gave Murielle Ahouré of the Ivory Coast the silver over Nigeria's Blessing Okagbare after both finished in the same time.
Great Britain's Christine Ohuruogu won the 400 metres in a national record time of 49.41. She came from behind to edge out defending champion Amantle Montsho of Botswana by 4 thousands of a second in a photo finish. Zuzana Hejnová won gold and set a Czech national record in the 400-metres hurdles. Eunice Sum of Kenya won her first major title, besting Olympic champion Mariya Savinova of Russia in the 800 metres.
In the 4×400 m relay, although the United States suffered a time-wasting exchange on the final leg, the Americans won by more than two seconds over Great Britain and France. The medal ceremony for the event took place at the 2017 IAAF World Championships in London upon the certification of results by the IAAF following the retroactive disqualification of first-place Russia when Antonina Krivoshapka was retroactively disqualified on a positive drug test in a 2017 retest of samples.
Russia's Tatyana Lysenko set a World Championships record in the hammer throw en route to the gold. Caterine Ibargüen won Colombia's first ever World Championship gold by finishing first in the triple jump. Christina Obergföll of Germany won her first World Championships title in javelin.

Track

Field

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Statistics

Medal table

A total of 47 sets of medals were distributed between 39 countries. Initially, host nation Russia topped the medal table with seven gold medals. However, after numerous disqualifications of Russians athletes for doping, the United States topped the medal table with eight golds. In the overall medal count, the United States won 26 medals in total, followed by Kenya with 12.

Points

The IAAF placing table assigns eight points to the first place and so on to the eight finalists. 59 IAAF members received points.
Host.

Participating nations

206 countries participated with a total of 1974 athletes. The biggest delegation was the one of USA with 137 athletes. The number of athletes sent per nation is show in parentheses.
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Broadcasting

In the United States the IAAF sold exclusive rights to Universal Sports, a network associated with NBC Sports. Universal Sports can only be seen in about ten percent of the households in the American market. While NBC provided an hour and a half of coverage on weekend days, Universal Sports limited other distribution of the content, even online content requiring login with cable subscription user names. For those viewers without access to Universal Sports, nationwide coverage of the entire meet was generally limited to six hours of weekend coverage. The IAAF provided short YouTube highlight clips, a fraction of the online coverage they provided from Daegu two years earlier, instead promoting an internet radio feed and Twitter updates.

Controversies

The introduction of a Russia federal law in June banning "homosexual propaganda" affected the championships hosted in Moscow. Western and international bodies had already condemned the move prior to the event, which was scheduled several months prior to the more prominent 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The IAAF deputy secretary general, Nick Davies, stated that the international nature of the competition might alter the country's perspective, but that the matter of gay rights would not be addressed by the championships, as long as its athletes were unaffected. Russian politician Vitaly Milonov had stated that the law would apply to athletes and tourists in the same way as Russian citizens. He also said those suggesting a boycott of the championships in protest of the laws were merely avoiding their competitors, saying "sports competitions are a place where there can't be any politics".
Several athletes voiced their concerns over the issue of gay rights in Russia, but none boycotted the event. American runner Nick Symmonds, a supporter of the NOH8 Campaign for equal rights, said he would respect the host nation and its laws and would focus on sporting competition only in Moscow. However, he maintained his position as an advocate of gay rights and would silently dedicate his performance "to my gay and lesbian friends back home".
Two Swedish athletes, high jumper Emma Green Tregaro and sprinter Moa Hjelmer, attracted attention when they painted their nails in a rainbow pattern in support of gay rights and displayed the colours during the qualifying rounds. The IAAF notified the Swedish Athletics Federation that this gesture was in breach of rules on athlete conduct. The Swedish officials stood by Green Tregaro, but she relented under the pressure – in the high jump finals, she sported all red nails as a symbol of love. While watching the high jump finals, Paavo Arhinmäki, the Finnish Minister for Culture and Sport, waved a rainbow flag at the arena. Hjelmer had been eliminated in the first round of the 200 metres and did not compete again at the championships.
Russia's Yelena Isinbayeva was a popular winner in the women's pole vault, but later drew controversy for her remarks criticizing Green Tregaro's nails. She said the protests were disrespectful towards the host nation and commented in English: "We consider ourselves like normal, standard people, we just live boys with women, girls with boys...We have our law which everyone has to respect. When we go to different countries, we try to follow their rules." Following the negative reactions from other athletes and Western media she said that she had been misunderstood due to her grasp of English: "What I wanted to say was that people should respect the laws of other countries particularly when they are guests. But let me make it clear I respect the views of my fellow athletes, and let me state in the strongest terms that I am opposed to any discrimination against gay people on the grounds of their sexuality."
During the medal ceremony for the women's 4 × 400 metres relay images of Kseniya Ryzhova and Yuliya Gushchina sharing a kiss on the lips spread through social media and were interpreted as a protest against the anti-gay laws. Both Ryzhova and Gushchina denied any intention to make such a protest, rather they were simply happy with their athletic success, and stated that they were married to men. Although reports were principally focused on the pair, all four of the Russia relay runners briefly kissed each other on the podium. Ryzhova described her assumed connection to LGBT as insulting. The Russian Minister for Sport, Vitaly Mutko, said that Western media had overemphasised the issue, noting that same-sex relations are not illegal in Russia and sparser coverage of the issue in domestic media.