Series

Roger Bannister and Diane Leather Charles, who respectively became the first man to run the mile in under four minutes and the first woman to break the five-minute barrier for the distance, were among the honourees at the ‘World Athletics Heritage Mile Night’ in Monaco on Thursday (21).

World pole vault record-holder Renaud Lavillenie and four-time world shot put champion Valerie Adams will make a different type of history on Friday when they become the first active athletes to join the World Athletics Council as full voting members, following the governance reforms introduced in 2016.

USA’s Paul Chelimo, who earned Olympic silver in the 5000m in 2016 and world bronze in 2017, offers some words of motivation to his teenage self.

Geoffrey Kamworor's world half marathon record of 58:01 has been ratified.

For the past year and a half, the Confederation of African Athletics has owned and operated seven centres to train athletes, coaches and officials. These institutions, known as African Athletics Development centres, are scattered around the continent and are born of a desire to breed African talent on home soil.

The World Athletics Doping Review Board has agreed that the applications of six Russian athletes have met the exceptional eligibility criteria to compete in the 2019 European Cross Country Championships as neutral athletes under competition Rule 22.1A(b) while the Russian national federation (RusAF) remains suspended.

With five days to go until the World Athletics Awards 2019, the finalists for the Photograph of the Year award have been selected.

Uganda’s Maxwell Rotich and Portugal’s Mariana Machado raced to victory at the 26th ‘Cross Internacional de Soria’, the second leg of the 2019-20 World Athletics Cross Country Permit series held in the outskirts of Soria, Spain, on a cloudy and cold Sunday (17).

Kenya’s Paul Lonyangata and Yebrgual Melese of Ethiopia took the men’s and women’s title at the Shanghai International Marathon, a World Athletics Gold Label road race, on Sunday (17).

Jim Walmsley of the US and Cristina Simion of Romania raced to victory in the long races as the World Mountain Running Championships concluded in Villa La Angostura, Argentina, on Saturday (16).

World Athletics is deeply saddened by the news that Harrison Dillard, the only male athlete to win Olympic titles in the 100m dash and 110m hurdles, died near his home in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, on Thursday (15). Dillard, who won four Olympic gold medals during his career, was 96, the oldest living US Olympic champion.

Ahead of the World Athletics Awards 2019 we toast a special quintet of athletes from yesteryear who have all enjoyed great success at the glittering annual event.