The World Athletics Championship is an international track-and-field competition held every two years that serves as the world championship for track and field. It is organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) and is one of the world’s major sporting events. The competition is a major event on the global calendar for both men and women.
It has been called a “competition of champions” and the top eight athletes in each event earn a medal. Athletes must meet certain qualification standards to compete, such as finishing in the top 14 of a previous IAAF world championship or a certain time in a qualifying race. This means that a good performance at the IAAF World Indoor Championships, for example, can boost an athlete’s chances of earning a medal at the world outdoor championships.
Several athletes have won multiple medals at the championships, with Jamaican sprinters Usain Bolt and Michael Johnson leading the way with five each. The heptathlon has also produced multiple medallists, including Ethiopia’s Meseret Defar and Great Britain’s Katarina Johnson-Thompson.
Kenya is celebrating a golden generation of female runners after securing six gold medals in Tokyo. Beatrice Chebet became the third Kenyan woman to win a 5,000m-10,000m double at a World Championships, following Tirunesh Dibaba (Helsinki 2005) and Vivian Cheruiyot (Daegu 2011).
In a dramatic final on Sunday, Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi beat Ethiopia’s Guduf Tsegay by 0.01 seconds in the men’s 10,000m. British sprinter Torrie Lewis won his first medal of the championships with a second place in the men’s 200m. Jake Wightman secured a bronze in the men’s 1500m, while Abbey Caldwell and Claudia Hollingsworth claimed their first global silver medals.