Athletics-Coe acclaims championship for the ages

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By Mitch Phillips

TOKYO (Reuters) -World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said the 20th edition of the World Athletics Championships, which ends on Sunday evening, had been “extraordinary” and praised the people of Tokyo for creating such a great stadium atmosphere.

The third world championships in four years has certainly delivered, with a series incredible finishes on the track and last-round drama in many of the field events.

One statistic doing the rounds in Tokyo is that the combined winning margin of the men’s 1,500 metres, 3,000m steeplechase, 10,000m and marathon was an astonishing 0.18 seconds.

“It’s nine days of just outstanding athletics, and actually in a way so much more,” Coe told a press conference in the Olympic Stadium.

“This has been a championship for the ages, there have been many, many outstanding memories for me and pretty much every discipline, track and field, has thrown them up.

“I thought, there was probably not much that was going to surpass the finish to the women’s marathon and then the next day I’m there with the men’s marathon (when Tanzania’s Alphonce Simbo pipped Germany’s Amanol Petros by three hundredths of a second). It’s just been extraordinary.”

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Coe believes that having the world championships as the finale of the season, rather than a return for one or two Diamond League meetings as is usually the case, contributed to athletes being able to fine-tune their preparation to be in top form for when it really matters.

He was also delighted to have a full house of around 58,000 for most nights, with more than 600,000 spectators attending overall. Those numbers were particularly significant coming after the COIVD-delayed Olympics held in the same stadium in 2021 with no fans allowed in.

“My memory is not just the Mondo (Duplantis) pole vault world record but it’s the 57,000 people who remained in the stadium with only a field event, I say only a field event, but actually not one of them left at the end of the track session, and wanted to stay on.” Coe said.

“The stage was created for a group of athletes for the ages, and from wherever you look, the response, the atmosphere has been really outstanding.”

Coe said he enjoyed the men’s 800 metres on Saturday, but only after he knew his 1981 British record – which stood as the world record for 26 years – was safe from the threat of Max Burgin.

Kenya’s Emmanuel Wanyonyi won a terrific race in a championship record 1:41.86 as eight men had finished inside 1:43 in a single race for the first time. Coe watched alongside world record holder David Rudisha and he said both were initially concerned their records might fall.

“It was at about 550m when the pace started to slip when were we both sat there thinking ‘well our records are intact, now we can really watch the race’,” he said. “It was a good evening all round, but a proper, proper 800 metres.”

With one session to go, 46 countries have won medals with 16 taking home a gold. The United States lead the way with 12 golds, four silver and four bronze and will expect to add to that bag in Sunday’s relays.

(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Ed Osmond)