The World Athletics Championship is a major sporting event where the top athletes in each discipline compete to decide the world’s best. It is a once-a-year competition held at the end of the season, and the selection process for this competition is based on world rankings.
The first World Championships were hosted in Helsinki, Finland, in 1983. It was the result of a growing desire within athletics to have a tournament that brought together the world’s leading athletes and really decided who the very best was in each discipline.
At a meeting of the IAAF Council in 1976 in Puerto Rico, the decision was made to establish a World Championships separate from the Olympic Games. After bids were received from Stuttgart, Germany and Helsinki, Finland, the latter was chosen to host the inaugural competition in 1983.
It was an event that saw a number of outstanding performances. Carl Lewis won a triple gold in the sprints, and Jarmila Kratochvilova dominated in the middle distances. Meanwhile, British athletics star Daley Thompson claimed decathlon bronze and Steve Cram took the 1500m crown.
It was also the year that saw a new generation of talent come through, with Josh Kerr storming through on the final straight to force Jakob Ingebrigtsen into second place in the 1500m and Sifan Hassan grabbing a double gold medal in the 5000m and 10,000m.