TheWorld Athletics Championships, known as theIAAF World Championships in Athletics until 2019, are a biennialathletics competition organized byWorld Athletics, formerly International Association of Athletics Federations. Alongside theOlympic 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 theInternational Olympic Committee dropping the men's 50 km walk from theOlympic programme for the1976 Montreal Olympics, despite its constant presence at the games since1932. The IAAF chose to host its own world championship event, a month and a half after the Olympics.[1][2] 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.[3]
At their debut, these championships were then held every four years, until 1991 when they switched to a two-year cycle.[4] 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.[5]
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 theOlympic 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 inPuerto Rico an Athletics World Championships separate from the Olympic Games was approved.
Over the years the competition has grown in size. In1983 1,333 athletes from 153 countries participated.[8] By the 2003 competition, inParis, it had grown to 1,679 athletes from 198 countries with coverage being transmitted to 179 countries.
There has also been a change in composition over the years, with several new events, all for women, being added. By2005, the only differences were men's competition in the 50 km walk, and equivalent events in women's100 m hurdles andheptathlon to men's110 m hurdles anddecathlon.
^[1]ANA is the name under which Russian athletes competed in the2017 and2019 Championships. Their medals were not included in the official medal table.[11][12]
In theIAAF 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.
* including one medal in the relay event in which she participated in the heats only ** including two medals in the relay events in which she participated in the heats only *** including three medals in the relay events in which she participated in the heats only **** including four medals in the relay events in which she participated in the heats only
The most recent world record was in the men's pole vault final in 2025, when the SwedishArmand Duplantis cleared 6.30 m. World records have become less common as the history of the event has expanded, with no world records set in the 1997, 2001, 2007 or 2013 editions.
American athletes have been the most successful with fifteen world records, followed by Jamaica and Great Britain on four each. Jamaican sprinterUsain Bolt has broken the most world records at the competition, at four, while AmericanCarl Lewis set three.Jonathan Edwards holds the distinction of breaking the world record twice in one championships: improving upon his own newly-set world record in the1995 men's triple jump final while Armand Duplantis broke the men's pole vault world record twice on two separate championships, first in 2022 and later in 2025. The men's4 × 100 metres relay has yielded the most world records, with five set between 1983 and 2011.
Ben Johnson's time of 9.83 seconds at the1987 World Championships men's 100 m final was initially considered to be a world record, but this was rescinded in 1989 after Johnson admitted to steroid use between 1981 and 1988.
Also, the 2009 Jamaican men's4 × 100 metres relay team time of 37.31 seconds was retrospectively recognised to as the world record after the team's time of 37.10 at the2008 Olympics was rescinded after the disqualification ofNesta Carter (who was not present in the World Championships team).
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