World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation and International Association of Athletics Federations and formerly abbreviated as the IAAF, is the international governing body for the sport of athletics, covering track and field, cross country running, road running, race walking, mountain running, and ultra running. Included in its charge is the standardization of rules and regulations for the sports, certification of athletic facilities, recognition and management of world records, and the organisation and sanctioning of athletics competitions, including the World Athletics Championships. The organisation's president is Sebastian Coe of the United Kingdom, who was elected to the four-year position in 2015 and re-elected in 2019 for a second four-year term, and then again in 2023 for a third four-year term.
The IAAF World Athletics Final was an annual track and field competition organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). It was inaugurated in 2003 to replace the IAAF Grand Prix Final. The competition was part of the IAAF World Athletics Series and was the seasonal culmination of the IAAF World Outdoor Meetings series from 2003 to 2005, then the IAAF World Athletics Tour from 2006 to 2009. Due to changes in the one-day meeting system introduced by the IAAF, the World Athletics Final was discontinued after the 2009 season.
The 10,000 metres or the 10,000-metre run is a common long-distance track running event. The event is part of the athletics programme at the Olympic Games and the World Athletics Championships, and is common at championship-level events. The race consists of 25 laps around an Olympic-sized 400 m track. It is less commonly held at track and field meetings due to its duration. The 10,000-metre track race is usually distinguished from its road running counterpart, the 10K run, by referring to the distance in metres rather than kilometres.
The World Athletics Combined Events Tour is an annual series of combined track and field events meetings, organised since 1998 by World Athletics, with heptathlon for women and decathlon for men. The winners are decided by totalling the number of points that the athletes have scored in each of three combined events competitions during the season. Points scored are determined by the World Athletics combined events scoring tables. The series includes annual independent combined events meetings as well as championship level combined events competitions, such as the World Athletics Championships and Olympic Games. It is the premier seasonal competition for decathletes and heptathletes, as combined events are not held for the Diamond League.
The World Athletics Race Walking Tour is a racewalking series organised by World Athletics. Athletes accumulate points in specific race walk meetings during the season. Performances in 10 kilometres race walk, 20 kilometres race walk and 50 kilometres race walk count towards athlete's final scores. Since 2011, racewalking performances at the World Athletics Championships and Olympic Games count towards the series. Women have competed in the 50 km distance since 2018.
Fionnuala McCormack is an Irish runner who has competed at a range of distance running events. She was the gold medallist at the 2011 and 2012 European Cross Country Championships, becoming the first woman to successfully defend the title. She has represented Ireland in the steeplechase at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics, the 2007 World Championships in Athletics and 2011 World Championships in Athletics, and twice at the European Athletics Championships.
Charlotte Lucy Purdue is a British long-distance runner who competes in the Marathon and Half Marathon, as well as cross country running for Aldershot, Farnham and District Athletics Club. After winning a number of youth titles at national level, she had her first international success at the European Cross Country Championships, winning medals in the junior races of 2007 and 2008. She was also the best European junior at the World Cross Country Championships those years.
Ben St Lawrence is an Australian long-distance runner who specialises in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres. He is the former Australian and Oceanian record holder in the 10,000 metres. St Lawrence competed in the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and qualified for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. St Lawrence qualified for the 10,000 metres in both instances. He has also qualified for two World Championships, two World Cross Country Championships and two Commonwealth Games.
Emily Infeld is an American long-distance runner. She regularly competes in the 5000 m and 10,000 m distances during her professional career; in her college career she regularly competed in the 4 × 800 meter relay and 1500 m on up to 5000 m.
Alice Aprot Nawowuna is a Kenyan long-distance runner. She was the gold medallist in the 10,000 metres at the 2015 African Games, where she also won the bronze medal in the 5000 metres. Aprot claimed gold and silver in the 10,000 m at the 2016 and 2018 African Championships in Athletics respectively. She earned the silver medal for the senior women's race at the 2017 World Cross Country Championships.
For the athletics at the 2020 Summer Olympics competitions, the following qualification systems were in place. Qualification ended on 29 June 2021, but for marathon and 50 km race walking, it ended on 31 May 2021. Some 1900 athletes, from 196 countries, competed. 103 countries qualified also through Universality places.
India competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Originally scheduled to take place in July–August 2020, the games were postponed to 23 July to 8 August 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Games marked the nation's 25th appearance at the Summer Olympics after having made its official debut at the 1900 Summer Olympics.
The 2023 World Athletics Championships, the nineteenth edition of the World Athletics Championships, were held from 19 to 27 August 2023 at the National Athletics Centre, in Budapest, Hungary. The tournament returned to its usual two-year cycle after the previous event in Eugene, Oregon, United States was postponed to 2022, held a little 13 months earlier due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Belarus competed at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. Originally scheduled to take place from 24 July to 9 August 2020, the Games were postponed to 23 July to 8 August 2021, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was Belarus' last appearance at the Summer Olympics as Belarus along with Russia was barred from competiting at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris as a result of the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. It was the nation's seventh consecutive appearance at the Summer Olympics in the post-Soviet era.
The World Athletics Rankings are an individual athlete ranking system for the sport of athletics, managed by World Athletics. It is used to establish the number one athlete within an athletics event and to partially determine qualification into the World Athletics Championships and the athletics at the Summer Olympics. The rankings are published weekly by World Athletics on Wednesday. WA President Sebastian Coe said the goal of this system is so athletes and fans "have a clear understanding of the hierarchy of competitions from national through to area and up to global events, allowing them to follow a logical season-long path to the pinnacle of athletics' top two competitions".
The World Athletics Cross Country Permit Meetings were an annual series of independently-run cross country running competitions which were recognised by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) with permit status. First held in 1999, the meetings could be used to gain qualification to the IAAF World Cross Country Championships. The number of legs in the series varied from around six to twelve meetings per year, with dates spanning the European winter months, from November to February, prior to the World Championships scheduled in March. The series replaced the IAAF World Cross Challenge, which was first held in 1990. The last series was held in 2020–2021, after which point it was replaced by the three-tier World Athletics Cross Country Tour.
The men's 10,000 metres at the 2019 World Athletics Championships was held at the Khalifa International Stadium in Doha on 6 October 2019.
The IJF World Tour is a worldwide top-tier judo tour, organized by the International Judo Federation since 2009.
Athletics at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris were held between 1 and 11 August 2024, featuring a total of 48 medal events across three distinct sets: track and field, road running, and racewalking. Four venues were used: Pont d'Iéna for race walking, Hôtel de Ville and Les Invalides for the start and end points of the marathon races, and Stade de France for the track and field events.
This article details the qualifying phase for athletics at the 2024 Summer Olympics. More than 1,800 athletes, with an equal split between men and women, will compete across forty-eight medal events at the Games. The qualification window for the marathon races will occur from 1 November 2022 to 30 April 2024; for the 10,000 metres, combined events, racewalks, and relays from 31 December 2022 to 30 June 2024; and for the remaining events on the program lineup from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024.
2023–24 World Athletics Cross Country Tour 
