Haile Gebreselassie in Stuttgart 1993 (© Getty Images)
How will we look back on this year’s fourth edition of the IAAF World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, 9 – 10 September 2006, the first time this World Athletics Series event has been staged outside Monaco?
If the previous two major events to be held in the stadium are the gauge, then with joyous delight by the time the competition ends on Sunday night at the Gottlieb-Daimler-Stadium.
Coe’s two lap finale
In 1986, when the European Championships took place in the arena that was known then as the NeckarStadion, it was the gold medal finale for one of the sport’s greatest competitors as Sebastian Coe, now an IAAF Council Member, won the 800m.
It was the final title of his extraordinary career, and his only major Championship victory over two laps.
How big was the clamour to know about Coe and his rivalry then with Steve Cram, whom he beat in that race? When the pair went head-to-head on the Sunday in the 1500m, which Cram won, the result was even announced on the Lufthansa flights back to London.
Geb’s first senior championship title
Seven years later, the fourth edition of the IAAF World Championships in Athletics and as one of the greatest of two and four lap athletes had bowed out in 1986, one of the finest ever over 25 made his first mark.
Haile Gebrselassie, of Ethiopia, is widely regarded as the finest longest distance runner of his, and many other generations, and his record of gold medal success began at the venue which this weekend brings the inaugural IAAF World Athletics Tour season to a close.
In 1993, Gebrselassie saw his life change in Stuttgart. He produced a stunning final lap to triumph in the 10,000 metres in 27:46.02, beating Kenyans Moses Tanui and Richard Chelimo. He finished second in the 5000m too.
But his prize for winning the 10,000m was a Mercedes car and only then did his father realise that maybe his son had taken the right career path.
As Gebrselassie, who went onto retain that 10,000m crown in Gothenburg, in 1995, Athens in 1997, and Seville, in 1999, said: “He did not know it was a means to making money. My father thought sport was something fun.”
“I gave my father the Mercedes and when it arrived in Addis it was amazing. He said: 'Now you can support not just yourself but me too'.”
And so the world knew all about Gebrselassie, built from a foundation of a first senior title in a stadium where the most consistent competitors of this summer will look for a share of a $3 million dollar purse given by the IAAF. The track may not be the exact same surface or in fact colour nowadays but the competition will take place on the ground where legends were created and where some records still stand.
Hammer mark still standing
On 30 August 1986, Russian Yuriy Sedykh won gold in the Hammer with a throw of 86.74m. It was a World record and now over 20 years later, few could have imagined that the mark would still be untouched.
The closest any competitor has been to toppling it was in 2005 when Belarussian Ivan Tikhon, the double World champion, hit 86.73m. He will be competing in the event, which is the first on the programme tomorrow, and what an amazing moment it would be if he threw just two centimetres more than his best.
Of the main Olympic and World Championship events, Sedykh’s mark remains the second longest standing men’s World record behind Jürgen Schult’s 74.08m in the discus just two months earlier in 1986.|
By winning the 200m in 21.71, East Germany’s Heike Drechsler equalled the World record, while Stuttgart did witness a rarity in the women’s Javelin Throw at those European Championships when Fatima Whitbread, of Great Britain, broke the World record...in the qualifying competition.
She threw 77.44m and then won gold with 76.32m.
In 1993, the World Championships were quite an occasion for two more Britons as Colin Jackson won the 110m Hurdles in 12.91 and Sally Gunnell triumphed in the 400m Hurdles in 52.74m - both times were a World record.
But here in 1986, the 400m Hurdles mark had also fallen when Russia’s Marina Stepanova ran 53.32.
Still going strong
And yet, among all that triumph and glory, the past and the future still remain when thoughts of that competition in Stuttgart comes back into focus in '93. It was there that at the age of 33 that Merlene Ottey, of Jamaica, finally won a gold medal at the IAAF World Championships of Athletics. She triumphed in the 200m, and 13 years later, she is still competing at the highest level.
Roll on the World Athletics Final, history is waiting for you.
Richard Lewis for the IAAF
