With Mondo providing the athletics track for the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23, which will be held in the Hungarian capital between 19-27 August, no less than 13 of the 19 editions of the premier athletics event in the world will have been held on Mondo tracks.
Athletes excelling at these championships have set a myriad of world, continental, and national records.
Here are our Top Ten Mondo Magic Moments at the World Athletics Championships, set on Mondo tracks.
Stefka Kostandinova (BUL) clears a world record 2.09m to win the 1987 World Athletics Championships women’s high jump. Twenty-six years later, at the start of the 2023 summer season, it still hasn’t been beaten.
Jonathan Edwards (GBR) created history at the 1995 World Athletics Championships in Gothenburg when he bounded out to a triple jump world record of 18.16m with his first effort and then, in the following round, went even further to land at 18.29m, a mark which remains the world record today.
Sergey Bubka (UKR) set a phenomenal 35 world records during his spectacular career. Still, he also won six consecutive world titles from 1983 to 1997, his last one coming in Athens with a championship record of 6.01m.
Michael Johnson (USA) flew around one lap of Sevilla’s Estadio Olimpico in a world record of 43.18 to win his fourth consecutive world 400m title in 1999. After that, it was not beaten until 2016.
In one of the greatest distance races ever at a World Athletics Championships, Gete Wami (ETH) set a championship and African 10,000m record of 30.24:56 in sweltering conditions at the 1999 championships in Sevilla, outkicking Paula Radcliffe’s (GBR) 200 metres from home.
Osleidys Menendez (CUB) added 16cm to her four-year-old javelin world record with a massive opening throw of 71.70m at the 2005 World Athletics Championships. In a thrilling competition in Helsinki, Christina Obergföll (GER) finished second with a European record of 70.03m.
Jamaica’s men’s 4x100m quartet – including the incomparable Usain Bolt on the anchor leg – ran a stunning world record 37.04 at the 2011 World Athletics Championships in Daegu, with Bolt timed at an unofficial 8.8 from a flying start.
Ashton Eaton (USA) put together a stunning decathlon world record tally of 9045 points at the 2015 World Athletics Championships in Beijing. His total over two days included a decathlon world best in the 400m of 45.00.
At the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Dalilah Muhammad (USA) set a 400m hurdles world record of 52.16 after a memorable duel with her American compatriot Sydney McLaughlin, the latter having to settle for silver despite running 52.23.
Sifan Hassan (NED) was a convincing 10,000m winner earlier at the 2019 World Athletics Championships but threw down the gauntlet to her rivals after the first lap in the 1500m to win in 3:51.95, completing an unprecedented double with the fastest time ever in a global championship.