IAAF World Championships in Athletics

The World Championships in Athletics is an event organized by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). It is one of the largest sporting events in the world, and depending on how it is measured, possibly smaller only than the Summer Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. Originally, it was organised every four years, but this changed in 1991, and it has since been organized biennially.

History

The idea of having an Athletics World Championships was around well before the competitions 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 1960's 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 (where the 1952 Summer Olympics were held).

Over the years the competition has grown in size. In 1983 an estimated 1,300 athletes from 154 countries participated. By the 2003 competition, in Paris, it had grow to 1,907 athletes from 203 countries with coverage being transmitted to 179 different countries.

There has also been a change in the schedule over the years, with several new events, mostly for women, being added. By the 2005 the schedule for men and women was all but equal. The only differences being the men had the extra event of the 50 km Walk, while women competed in the 100 m Hurdles and Heptathlon compared to the men in the 110m Hurdles and Decathlon respectively.

The following shows when new events were added for the first time.

1987, women's 10,000 m and 10 km walk were added.
1993, women's triple jump was added.
1995, women's 5000 m was added, replacing the 3000 m race.
1999, women's pole vault and hammer were added and the women's 20 km walk replaced the 10 km walk.
2005, women's 3000 m Steeplechase was added.

Championships

1997

Order	Year	City	Country	Date	Venue	No. of Events	No. of Athletes
1	1983	Helsinki	Finland	August 7 - August 14 1983	Olympiastadion	41	1,355
2	1987	Rome	Italy	August 28 - September 6 1987	Stadio Olimpico	43	1,451
3	1991	Tokyo	Japan	August 23 - September 1 1991	National Olympic Stadium	43	1,517
4	1993	Stuttgart	Germany	August 13 - August 22 1993	Gottlieb Daimler Stadium	44	1,689
5	1995	Gothenburg	Sweden	August 5 - August 13 1995	Ullevi	44	1,804
6		Athens	Greece	August 1 - August 10 1997	Olympiako Stadio	44	1,882
7	1999	Seville	Spain	August 20 - August 29 1999	Estadio Olímpico de la Cartuja	46	1,821
8	2001	Edmonton	Canada	August 3 - August 12 2001	Commonwealth Stadium	46	1,677
9	2003	Paris (Saint-Denis)	France	August 23 - August 31 2003	Stade de France	46	1,679
10	2005	Helsinki	Finland	August 6 - August 14 2005	Olympiastadion	47
11	2007	Osaka	Japan	August 24 - September 2 2007	Nagai Stadium
12	2009	Berlin	Germany		Olympiastadion

Other Athletics World Championship events

Prior to the inaugral IAAF World Championships in Helsinki in 1983 there had been several single events and races in the years leading up to them which were considered World Championships in those events. These mostly consisted of non-Olympic events for which the Olympics didn't provide the opportunity for the holding of World Championships. Below we have the medal winners from these events.

1976 (Malmö, Sweden)

Event:		Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
50 km Walk	Men	Veniamin Soldatenko USSR	3:54:40	Enrique Vera Mexico	3:58:14	Reima Salonen Finland	3:58:53

1980 (Sittard, Netherlands)

Event:		Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
3000 m	Women	Brigit Friedmann East Germany	8:48.05	Karoline Nemetz Sweden	8:50.22	Ingrid Kristiansen Norway	8:58.80
400 m Hurdles	Women	Bärbel Broschat West Germany	54.55	Ellen Neumann West Germany	54.56	Petra Pfatt West Germany	55.84

External links

Results of past World Championships

Official site of the 10th IAAF World Championships in Athletics