When World Championship came to Sweden and Greece

Dinesh Weerawansa

The latest edition of the IAAF World Championship will commence in the Russian capital of Moscow on Saturday (10)August. With all eyes focused on the biggest athletic event meet in the world after the Olympic Games, we began a countdown to the IAAF World Championship in the Daily News and the Sunday Observer to go down memory lane and recall the 13 previous championships.

Having discussed the origin of the World Championships and the origin of the first-ever meet in 1983 and the next three, today we take a look at the fifth and the sixth world championships of the series.

The 5th IAAF World Championship was worked off in Goteborg, Sweden from August 5 to 13, 1995 with a total of 1,804 athletes from 191 countries seen in action at Ullevi Stadium. The women's 3,000m was replaced by 5,000m for the first time in championship history.

For the second time in the IAAF World Championship history, the USA registered a convincing lead in the final medals standing with 12 gold medals while none of the other 190 countries failed to win even three gold medals.

Belarus was placed second with two gold and three silver medals but there were eight other countries, including the hosts Germany, who had won two gold medals each. Nevertheless, it was a sad story for the hosts Sweden which failed to secure a single medal, a dismal record only shared by two other host nations to date - Canada in 2001 and South Korea in 2011.

For the first time in the history of the championship, the USA failed to secure a single medal in men's 100m, an event in which they had won all three medals in two of the four previous champions up to Goteborg 1995. Canadian Donavan Bailey returned a timing of 9.97 seconds to win the men's 100m, ahead of compatriot Bruny Surin and Trinidadian Ato Bolden who settled for the silver and bronze medals.

However, Michael Johnson powered his way to a unique sprint double to keep the US hopes high, winning gold medals in men's 200m and 400m, both with two new continental records. He won the third gold of the meet by anchoring the US 4 x 400m men's relay team to victory.

Jamaican Merlene Ottey retained her women's 200m title, in addition to her silver in 100m, which was won by American Gwen Torrence in 10.85 seconds. The women's hurdles events were dominated by Americans with Gail Devers and Kim Batten bagging the gold medals.

Batten won her 400m hurdles gold in style with a new world record mark of 52.61 seconds - the only female world record breaker in track events in Goteborg 1995. Ukrainian Inessa Kravets had a leap of 15.50m to set a new world record in women's triple jump.

The only world record in men's events at the Goteborg 1995 was established by Jonathan Edwards of Great Britain who cleared 18.29m.

Though Sergey Bubka was 0.08m short of his previous meets performance, his clearance of 5.92m was good enough for the Ukrainian to win his fifth consecutive IAAF World Championship gold medal in men's pole vault.

The sixth edition IAAF World Championship was worked off in Athens, Greece from August 1 to 10, 1997 with a total of 1,882 competitors from a record 1918 countries seen in action at the Olympic Stadium. Unfortunately, there wasn't a single new world record in Athens.

Greece made every effort to host the event on a grand scale to prove its organising skills which they used at the following month's International Olympic Committee Council meeting Lausanne to win their bid to host the 2004 summer Olympic Games.

None thought that the event in Athens would open a golden chapter in Sri Lanka athletics as Susanthika Jayasinghe gave Sri Lanka its first ever medal in the World Championship history. She clocked 22.39 seconds in women's 200m to secure the silver medal, behind the Ukrainian gold medallist Zhanna Pintusevich-Block (22.32). But the Ukrainian lass was pushed to the second place in women's 100m by American Marion Jones who secured the gold medal with that season's world's leading time of 10.83 seconds.

Cuba won three of its four gold medals in men's field events through Javier Sotomayor (a world's leading 2.37m in high jump), Ivan Pedroso (a season's best 8.42m in long jump) and Yoelbi Quesada (a world's leading 17.85m in triple jump).

The fourth Cuban gold medallist in Athens 1997 was Ana Fidelia Quirot who clocked one minute and 57.14 seconds in women's 800m.

Ukrainian Sergey Bubka produced the 1997 season's world's leading performance of 6.01m to win his record sixth successive World Championship gold medal in his pet event.

The USA managed to head the final medal table with six gold medals, just one more gold medal than Germany who was placed second with five gold medals. American Maurice Green emerged the fastest man at the Athens 1997 IAAF World Championship when he won the men's 100m in 9.86 seconds. His team mate and veteran sprinter Michael Johnson won the men's 400m in 44.12 seconds but none of the Americans made it to the victory podium of men's 200m won by Trinidadian Ato Bolden in 20.04 seconds.