By Lori Ewing
BUDAPEST, Sept 13 (Reuters) – World Athletics president Sebastian Coe believes his sport has spent too long asking spectators to wait, and he points to the new Ultimate Championship as evidence of how athletics can move faster to attract younger audiences.
The inaugural three-day event, set to wrap on Sunday evening in Budapest, strengthened Coe’s conviction that athletics needs to quicken its pace, with the condensed format demonstrating how the sport can better engage modern audiences.
“I’ve never understood why it takes seven minutes between the heats of the women’s 200 metres,” Coe told a small group of reporters on Sunday morning.
“It just drives me to distraction. So getting stuff more rapidly engages, I think, younger people better.”
The championship, created as a season-ending showcase, compressed competition into a television-friendly format designed to keep fans engaged. Graphics highlighted things like rankings and winning probabilities, while lengthy pre-race introductions were condensed.
“Watching Usain (Bolt) stand on the start line for 20 minutes while volunteers are taking his kit leaves people cold,” he said. “They just want the event.”
While the format attracted attention, Coe said some of the strongest feedback concerned the event’s record $10 million prize pot.
Winners collected $150,000 and prize money extended throughout the field, something Coe has long championed.
Two athlete comments crystallised why, he said.
American hurdler and world-record holder Masai Russell told him: “It’s the most money I’ve ever earned in 11 seconds.”
British long jumper Jazmin Sawyers, who earned $75,000 for second place, had an equally powerful message.
“She said, ‘It means I can stay on in the sport for another year,'” Coe said. “When I was pushing prize money, that’s exactly what I had in mind.”
FAN ENGAGEMENT
In a departure from the Diamond League circuit, athletes competed in national team uniforms rather than commercial kits, a move Coe believes strengthens fan engagement.
“You put an Italian athlete in a national vest, you’re going to get significantly more viewership if there is a national connotation to it,” he said.
Coe, a four-times Olympic medallist over 800 and 1,500 metres, said the championship attracted significant interest from beyond athletics, with more than 20 International Olympic Committee members attending alongside senior officials from rowing, table tennis and volleyball.
“We all learn from each other here,” he said.
The competition will now undergo a rapid review process, but Coe stressed the format remained a work in progress. One of the criticisms has been the exclusion of some events.
“I have pointed out (the lineup of events) is not in tablets of stone,” he said.
Three of the sport’s biggest names were also front and centre, with Bolt back in the World Athletics fold nine years after retirement and current stars Noah Lyles and Mondo Duplantis helping promote the championship.
“Mondo is the gift that keeps giving because he just wants to help,” Coe said of world-record holder Duplantis, who won the pole vault on Friday. “He fundamentally understands that promotion is a large element (of an elite athlete’s career).”
Coe was also unfazed by suggestions the next edition could face competition for attention from the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“We wanted our World Championships and now the Ultimate to be the denouement of the season,” he said.
(Reporting by Lori EwingEditing by Christian Radnedge)
