Track worlds moved to July 2022
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The world athletics championships were rescheduled for July 15-24, 2022, yesterday, the first major sports event to be repositioned in the wake of the 12-month postponement of the Olympics because of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The event, which draws around 1,800 athletes from more than 200 countries, will still be held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, which was expanded and remodeled for the event that was originally supposed to take place in August 2021.
Instead of simply pushing back the worlds by a year, the new dates were chosen to coordinate with other major events set for 2022. The Commonwealth Games, which draw athletes from more than 70 countries in a wide array of sports, are scheduled for July 27-August 7. The European track championships are set for August 11-21.
World Athletics said it would allow athletes to compete in all three events, where eligible.
“The new schedule will prevent a direct conflict between any of these major events and, with careful programming, will ensure athletes can compete in up to three world-class competitions,” World Athletics said in a statement.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said that having the three events run consecutively over the course of a single summer would be “a bonanza for athletics fans around the world.
“They will be treated to six weeks of absolutely first-class athletics.
“We would not have chosen to have three major championships back-to-back but it will give us a unique opportunity to promote our sport and its stars around the globe over a six-week period.”
It will mark the first outdoor world championships held in the United States, and will be the first worlds to be held in an even-numbered year. They had been held in odd numbered years since they started in 1983.
Consecutive cycle
The delay sets up track and field for a long stretch of yearly major events: The Olympics in 2021, worlds in 2022, then again in 2023 (in Budapest, Hungary), followed by the Paris Olympics in 2024 and another world championships at a site still to be determined in 2025.
“It would offer athletics center stage at a very public point of the year,” Coe said in an interview last month. “So let’s look at it from a slightly optimistic way of being able to punch our sport into the homes of many more people over a four-year consecutive cycle.”
Coe came under criticism when Eugene was awarded the event because of his ties to sportswear company Nike, which was founded there.
The original dates of August 6-15 2021 would have clashed with the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics which were last month postponed by a year from the original July-August 2020 schedule.
The previous world championships were held in Doha, Qatar, last year.
On Tuesday, World Athletics announced that track and field qualification for next year’s Tokyo Olympics has been suspended until December 1 due to the pandemic.
“This period gives more certainty for athlete planning and preparation and is the best way to address fairness in what is expected to be the uneven delivery of competition opportunities across the globe for athletes given the challenges of international travel and government border restrictions,” Coe said in a statement.
Competitors who have already reached the qualification standards will retain their places for the Games next year.
The deadline for the marathon and 50-kilometer walk will be May 31 in 2021 with June 29 the date for the remaining events.
World Athletics’ global rankings have also been frozen. The season is set to begin in June but any results before the restart date will not count.
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