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≡ COE’S YEAR-END REVIEW ≡
“On any matrix of assessment, any metric, Tokyo was our most successful World Championships both in global reach, both in commercial partnerships and we went into those World Championships with more partners than we’ve ever had; the local organizing committee, some 14 local partnerships, which is unprecedented, and I think the athletes, the raised profile of the athletes – and this is the gift that keeps giving, on the track and off the track – made a huge difference, to the point where our own commercial revenues have increased over 25% in the last four years.”
The success of the 2025 World Athletics Championships was the capstone to a highly-successful 2025 in the view of World Athletics President Sebastian Coe (GBR), who made his annual end-of-year news media tour of the world by videoconference on Tuesday.
He took special pride in noting that athletes from 84 federations made a final in Tokyo in 2025, way up – for example – from 47 who made finals when the Worlds were first in Tokyo in 1991:
“For 84 countries to leave a world championships with either a finalist, or a top-eight finish, is unprecedented. I will say this, and I will never tire of saying it, there is no sport that has that global reach at world-championship level. …
“So we’ve sort of nearly doubled the number of countries in 30 years.”
The Tokyo Worlds ended up with 619,288 tickets sold, the third most ever behind Beijing 2015 and London 2017, and with evening sell-outs in seven of nine sessions. Moreover, the economic impact of the 2025 Worlds was projected at more than $522 million.
Across all of the World Athletics Series events in 2025, there were 1.4 billion viewer-hours across 234 territories or countries.
In the Diamond League and Continental Tours, more than 21,000 athletes competed and 222 national records were set. World Athletics-labeled road events had 5.5 million entries from 67 nations.
For 2026, he noted, “A huge season next year, we’ve got six [World Athletics Series] events,” including the Cross Country Worlds and World U-20s in the U.S., World Indoors in Poland, the World Relays in Botswana, the World Road Running Championships in Denmark, plus the new World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest (HUN) in September.
“This is indicative of the global reach of the sport that we have WAS events in six different continents next year. And that is also important, in a complicated, complex world, where multi-lateral systems are beginning to un-couple, we’re actually in there, working at the development end of sport, but also working in a commercial capacity as well. And that’s a good place for World Athletics to be.”
As for the Ultimate Championship, a totally new, three-day event developed by World Athletics, Coe explained:
“This is a big moment. It’s a very different type of format, it’s a very different model. It’s a different model for the athletes, it’s a very different model for host cities. I like to think it’s a glimpse of the future. …
“This new format matters, and it’s not just because of the historic $10 million prize pot – that is important – we really do want something that reads all action and no filler. It’s three hours a night over three nights, it’s unashamedly aimed at increasing our footprint across broadcastable offerings and we’ve really re-imagined the format to eliminate down time.
“So we have a condensed schedule of only semi-finals and finals. Yeah, not every track event, not every field event. And it will be one discipline at a time. And a new field-event format featuring dynamic height progression and continuous athlete filtering. And it’s really designed to maximize the amount of time at the business end of the competition.
“It will be and needs to be a re-imagined spectacle for our athletes, for our spectators an I’ve already seen some of the ideas that are surfacing – more than surfacing – around the field of play, our ability to focus on our stars, innovations like continuous and predictive data and athlete audible, technical, wearable equipment.
“The challenge we all have … is lending understanding to what is a complicated sport. If it was simple, it would be football.”
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Of course, he was asked about the situation with Grand Slam Track, now in bankruptcy proceedings. He skipped any direct comment, but saw the positives from what was attempted:
“I have always, from the very outset … I will always welcome new thoughts about formats, investment and innovation. …
“Apart from Grand Slam at the moment, I take comfort from the fact that people want to invest in our sport. That tells me that we’re creating a platform that it’s an investable proposition.”
But he underlined the need for not only innovation, but also for a sustainable business plan and strong execution. He added, “Going forward, probably a bit more probing on new ideas, which we certainly don’t want to strangle, but are they going to go full-term and are they going to do set out to do, which is change the landscape for athletes. That’s entirely what we’re trying to do with Ultimate.”
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Coe was asked about the International Olympic Committee’s review of the “protection of the female category” and if he thought the World Athletics position – with SRY gene testing as a primary determinant – would prevail. He answered cautiously but optimistically:
“I was at the Olympic Summit [last week], we didn’t have lengthy discussions about the protection and promotion of the female category.
“I know I can say that we have been very supportive of the direction of travel at the International Olympic Committee. I had good conversations with Kirsty [Coventry/ZIM] while we were campaigning for the same job, and was comforted in my conversations with her, at that stage, that she did understand that I was very open to revisiting and finding a little more clarity around that particular space.
“World Athletics has a very long, and I would say, distinguished history. My health and science teams are the best in the world – very happy and proud to be able to say that – [and] we’ve had many decades of having to deal with this.
“And, look, just a few weeks ago, we had an online session here with many International Federations and those organizations that are really keen to understand the practicalities of what we’ve had to do, whether it’s been some of the Court of Arbitration issues and actually the delivery of the SRY testing. I think we have set the right tone, and I think we’ve done it with moderate and careful language. We’re not rabid about it, but we are very confirmed in our view that the female category does need protecting, and it does need promoting, and I’m pleased in the direction of travel that the IOC have taken, and very proud that World Athletics has got input into that.”
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