IAAF Announcement on WC every year?

A World Championship every year will be great and is needed!

Wondering how this will mesh in with the Olympics and Diamond League finals. Both may have to be held before World Championships.

IAAF? What year is it?

This is so absurd I am finding it difficult to believe. I thought every two years cheapened the event.

Something is amiss. "Starting in 2025?" Well, they just announced Beijing as the host for 2027 but there is no mention of a host for 2026. This seems more likely to begin after the LA Games in 2028.

Good luck trying to find cities to host every year.

Exactly.

But there is always Eugene, Oregon.

I haven't read anything about having a World Championships in an Olympic year.

You seriously think that Seb Coe said "starting in 2025" but he was totally confused and off by an entire 4 years? Give me a break.

Just sit tight and wait for the eventual 2026 announcement.

You did not hear everything.

Possibly more important: starting next year, the World Championships will conclude the track and field season.

Meaning, the Diamond League/Continental Tour seasons will conclude prior to WCs.

Put another way: World Athletics has decided to follow the American football/basketball/baseball model of having a championship game/series conclude the season vs the tennis/golf model of having multiple championship matches scattered throughout the season.

Bravo, Lord Coe!!

Long time coming.

Footnote: Diamond League competitions concluding with the DL final a week or so before WCs would continue.

Essentially, the DL final would be the equivalent of the NBA's new, recently concluded in-season tournament which was intended to spark interest in the NBA's early season as well as encourage the players to put forth more effort. All indications are this "experiment" was successful on all fronts.

This headline is incorrect.

World Athletics made no mention of holding Worlds every year.

Instead, WA did make the following four important announcements:

1) 2027 WCs will be held in Bejing

2) in WC years, Worlds will conclude the track and field season, usually in mid-September

3) sprint/hurdle events up to the 800 (100, 200, 400, 800, 100H, 110H, 400H) will be contested in all nine lanes beginning with the 2025 WCs

4) top-3 finishers from in each heat from sprint events advance to the next round, resulting in 9-athlete finals; i.e., no more time qualifiers, just as we have now in the 1500, steeple, 5k, and 10k.

Again, shout out to World Athletics.

Well done.

while it makes sense to do it at the end of the year, I will miss watching them in the summer, when I have almost unlimited time to watch events at every hour of the day.

That in-season tournament ended in December, more than 4 months prior to the start of the playoffs. That doesn't align with Diamond League finals a week or two prior to world championships.

The NBA deal is also mandatory participation and the games count toward playoff eligibility and seeding. The Diamond League final is now going to be easily skipped by athletes who need rest or simply don't value it. There will be nothing to gain toward world championship standing.

The 2025 Diamond League final will be in Zurich. Do you seriously believe the top Americans will fly to Europe a week or two before going to Tokyo for the world championships? Lotsa luck with that one.

Coe better really work on the schedule to make it convenient for athletes to remain in Europe for several consecutive Diamond League events before having plenty of time to transition to Tokyo. Regardless of what he does, it's inevitable there will be numerous late withdrawals from the Diamond League final every year. Only huge infusion of cash will change that.

Let me expand on that a bit more. The Diamond League final in close proximity to world championships makes no sense whatsoever because many nations go to training camp prior to worlds, and it's hardly for a day or two. That's why the Diamond League always allows a huge break prior to world championships.

I follow the Dutch team. In 2022 they went to camp in Irvine nearly 2 weeks prior to world championships beginning. They remained in Irvine for more than a week. Simultaneously the Ukrainians were holding camp at the US Olympic Training Facility. I remember the Polish team was in Seattle.

None of that is going to be abandoned in the future.

In 2023 the London Diamond league was July 23 and then there was more than a 3 week gap to Budapest world championships beginning on August 23. That's what we're looking at going forward. It will hardly be 2 big events back to back. The Diamond League final will be considerably earlier than anyone is projecting. It will essentially be in the calendar spot held by recent world championships.

Coe has emphasized he wants a longer season. That is what this accomplishes. The Diamond League season will begin earlier. The Diamond League final will be in the former worlds slot. Anyone who wants the world championship glory will have to stick around until mid September.

Correct.

Offer $500,000 to the DL winners -- the amount each LA Laker received for winning the NBA's new in-season tournament -- and the athletes will follow the money.

Solution: WA offers to hold the DL final in Valencia, Spain -- and in return, have that billionaire guy who, apparently, is the man behind all these world-record-breaking Valencia races, fund the meet.

And, Lord Coe, there you have it.

Two guys on a message board have reasoned it out:

Much more $$ for the DL winners as an inducement to compete on the DL circuit.

At least a two week break from the end of the DL/Continental Tour circuit to WCs.

I seem to be in the minority here in believing that this calendar decision is an unwise one.

Cementing the World Championships in mid September would seem to rule out having them in northern Europe going forward, where it’s simply too cold at that point for a major outdoor championships.

I also question permanently putting the championships into a television window when not only have the major fixtures in the Premier League, Bundesliga, et cetera, have already gotten well underway but also now the American football season will also now be up and running. That cannot be beneficial for viewership or coverage within
American sports media.

Every odd numbered year will have this format, however we will return to the previous calendar format in the Olympic years, with the Olympics always taking place at the end of July and beginning of August, and I would gather an August date for the European Championships in those non-Olympic even-numbered years as to take advantage of the European summer.

I'm sure the Arab petrostates will up their game as delightful welcoming hubs of athletics