The China Mail - Outdoor athletics season should be longer, says Coe

The indoor season presently runs from end-January to April, before track and field moves outdoors, normally until September, but Coe believes this window is not big enough.

Speaking in Zurich, host of the Diamond League finals that finished Thursday with the world championships in Tokyo now just two weeks away, the 68-year-old Briton said the season was too short.

"One of the things that I spend a lot of time thinking about, and our innovation teams, is actually, 'how do we extend the season longer?'" he told media.

"We are, still for a professional sport, a relatively short season now."

Options were varied, "whether that is utilising the opportunity that the hemispheres give us, starting slightly earlier in environments where athletes can run quick".

"Or extending the season into environments where athletes can run, jump, throw at the height of their powers, but later on in the season, I think it is really important."

Coe, a two-time Olympic 1,500m gold medallist, added that World Athletics and other interested parties "always have to be conscious of athlete welfare".

"But I think it is really important going forward that we find as many opportunities to be able to showcase the extraordinary talent that's out there and not have it entirely condensed from effectively sort of late May-early June through until the few first few days of September.

"That's not a long enough season for professional sport."

- Extraordinary performance -

The world champs in Tokyo will close out the athletics season. The last time they were held so late was in 2019, when Doha hosted between September 27-October 6.

The 2027 worlds will be held in Beijing between September 11-19 while the first time Tokyo hosted the worlds, in 1991, they fell August 23-September 1.

Coe, however, did not expect any dip in performance come Tokyo, tying this in to his thread on a potential prolongation of the season.

"Well it's not obviously evident from the way that our athletes have been performing in our world, in the Diamond League," he said of the prospect of underperforming in the Japanese capital.

"And it's not quite as late as it was in Doha. But if you remember, Doha wasn't without its challenges. But the one thing that the gift that kept giving in Doha was the extraordinary performance.

"Performance is slightly later in the season of our competitors. This is the first year that under the new calendar configuration our world championships conclude the season.

"And it's our ambition to conclude every season with the world championships, not have a Diamond League that then continues beyond the world championships."

To that effect, World Athletics last year unveiled the new Ultimate Championship team event, which Coe predicted would be a "gamechanger" for track and field.

The inaugural event will be held in Budapest on September 11-13, 2026, and will be staged every two years to fulfil World Athletics' ambition of holding a global championship every year.

The event boasts a "record-setting" prize pot of $10 million (9.6 million euros). World Athletics said it was "the largest ever offered in track and field", with champions set to receive $150,000.

Each session will last three hours and athletes will represent both themselves and their national teams, wearing national kit.

Coe said he didn't think the current calendar "led a great deal of understanding to the fans who didn't quite understand why, 'Well, you know, somebody's just won a world championship. What does a diamond League Final mean?'

"I think it's much better sequenced. But only time will tell."

A.Zhang--ThChM