The World Athletics Championships Oregon22 have provided ideal conditions for the best track and field athletes in the world to shine on a global stage, with exhilarating and record-breaking performances by both individual athletes and national teams.
More than 1700 athletes from 179 countries (plus the Athlete Refugee Team) have competed in Oregon, watched by more than 130,000 ticketed spectators (with one sold-out session still to go).
In terms of performance, this will go down as the most universal edition in the history of the global event.
More countries than ever before have had athletes reach the finals of events in Oregon. The list of 81 countries is up from 76 countries in Doha in 2019, with Liberia, Niger, Pakistan, Samoa, Philippines and Guatemala reaching a final for the first time in World Championships history.
Underlying the diversity and global reach of track and field, every continental area features at least one world champion, while Peru and Kazakhstan won their first ever gold medals, and India and Burkina Faso also had their best ever medal performances (silver).
The record for the number of countries winning gold medals at one championships has also been broken, with 29 countries taking turns on the top step of the podium, compared with 26 in 2017.
The USA team broke the record for the most medals at a single championships, earning 33 in total, 13 of them gold.
That tally was strengthened by medal sweeps in the men’s 100m, 200m and shot put. Jamaica, meanwhile, achieved a medal sweep of its own, taking all three medals in the women’s 100m.
Peru’s Kimberly Garcia has been the top individual performer of the championships, landing double gold in the women’s race walks. Had she been entered as a separate team, she would place seventh on the medals table.
Beyond the dominant performers, there have also been many close finishes and competitive finals. Just two hundredths of a second separated the medallists in the men’s 100m. The women’s 10,000m also produced a close and thrilling finish, and the men’s shot put once again provided an exciting crescendo. Even the men’s 35km race walk went down to the wire, with just one second separating gold from silver.
Other performance milestones achieved in Oregon include:
· Sydney McLaughlin’s extraordinary world 400m hurdles record, now faster than the women’s flat 400m record was 50 years ago
· 13 championship records and 30 world-leading performances
· 3 world records, 19 area records, 94 national records, 1 world U20 record
· The fastest ever marathons at a major championships
· The first time that three women have broken nine minutes for the 3000m steeplechase
· Allyson Felix extended her record medal total to 20 after gold in the women’s 4x400m and bronze in the mixed 4x400m
Broadcast and social media
Our US broadcast partner NBC reports that this championships has already reached more viewers (13.7 million) than any previous World Athletics Championships with three days of ratings still to be reported (Friday-Sunday).
Coverage on the NBC broadcast network for the first weekend (average of 2.0 million viewers) ranked as the most-watched World Athletics Championships since Osaka 2007 and represented a 159% gain compared to NBC’s coverage of the 2019 edition. These numbers are expected to be even more impressive when the final three days of competition are reported early this week.
The World Championships has also spurred substantial growth and interaction across World Athletics’ social media platforms, attracting 400 thousand new followers, more than seven million engagements and more than 41 million video views, bringing the total following for our official social channels to more than 9.1 million across five platforms.
Legacy
World Athletics and parkrun have combined to help the Eugene and Springfield communities in Oregon open parkrun events, as a legacy of the World Athletics Championships Oregon22.
With one existing parkrun event already in Oregon, this will increase the number of opportunities for citizens and visitors of the state to be active and social in the great outdoors. The first event from this collaboration is planned to launch in the coming months, paving the way for many more across the state and beyond.
There are currently 53 parkrun locations in the United States. More than seven million people have participated in parkrun worldwide.
worldathletics.org
My family and I would like to thank every one of these young athletes who brought us such joy and pride with record breaking victories. You are our heroes whether you won or came short of victory. I wish you continued success with record breaking victories in the years to come. Insha’Allah!!!