The world’s best athletes descend on Budapest, Hungary, each summer for World Athletics Championship, the pinnacle of track and field. Over the course of nine days, the planet’s top runners, jumpers, throwers and race walkers battle it out in straight semifinals and finals to see who will be crowned the Ultimate Champion of their respective event. The meet is a spectacle to behold, with the best of the best making history with their heroic performances.
The 2023 championships are the 19th since the first World Championships were held in Helsinki in 1983. The next edition will be hosted in Tokyo from September 13 – 21 2025, marking the first time the Japanese capital has played host since the 1991 competition.
There’s a lot to love about World Athletics Championship: the adrenaline rush of watching elite athletes competing in front of adoring fans, the incredible level of specificity and chest-pumping celebration when a world record is broken, the fact that it’s arguably the most important meet of the year for many athletes. But there’s no denying that there’s something intangible about the event as well.
It was the year that Noah Lyles broke into the world’s fastest men, the year that American middle distance stars Keely Hodgkinson and Sha’Carri Richardson claimed back-to-back gold medals in 800 meters, the year that Ethiopian distance great Sifan Hassan took a downfall just metres from the finish line of the 10,000m and the year that Josh Kerr unleashed a jaw-dropping comeback to snag the 1500m title.