Farewell for famous faces

It’s not often that you can enter a major athletic championship – or any sport for that matter – and know who will be collecting medals. Fortunately this is not an expose on the latest corruption scandal on match-fixing, rather a sad reflection on a consequence of cheating by using drugs.

In total 11 individual athletes and five teams from 11 events spanning four previous IAAF World Championships will be reallocated medals, their positions upgraded after disgraced former winners were stripped of theirs.

I am delighted that those receiving gold medals will also benefit from having their national anthem played and flag raised.

Amongst those stepping onto the top of the podium will be Jessica Ennis-Hill who will receive her gold medal from the 2011 championship, representing her third world title, while Jo Pavey will receive her first championship medal thanks to her elevation to bronze from the 2007 meet in Osaka.

Of course these awards will not be the primary focus as over 10 magical days starting on Friday, the world’s top athletes will bring the roar back to the iconic stadium that saw Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Usain Bolt race to glory in the 2012 Olympics in London.

The London Championships will be the 16th in the event’s 34-year history with the first IAAF World Championships having been hosted in Helsinki in 1983.

The most recent Championships in Beijing, China, in August, 2015, saw 1,931 athletes participate from a record 207 national federations. Kenya topped the medal table for the first time in its history, winning 16 medals of which seven were gold while the USA have topped the medal table on 10 occasions.

The centre of attention will be Usain Bolt. The man who became the youngest-ever world junior champion in Jamaica’s national stadium in Kingston – his own back-yard – at the age of 15, will be retiring from the sport at the age of 30. Having said his farewells in Jamaica in June, he will be bidding adieu to the rest of the world from the track in London.

While he won his final hometown race against a modest field, the time more than 10 seconds was relatively slow by his standards. However, Bolt also has a reputation for running himself into form at a major championship. The good news for those wishing to see him exit on a high is that none of his rivals, including the Olympic bronze medallist Andre de Grasse, have been running well either.

Britain will be hoping that the home crowd support will propel their latest sprint sensation into contention Chijindu Ujah, who missed the Rio Olympics final in the 100m by 0.01 sec.

While Bolt will finish with the 4 x 100m relay, there is a sense that he is passing on the baton in another manner.  Wayde van Niekerk, The 400m world-record holder South African who many believe will inherit Bolt’s mantle, will be attempting to replicate Michael Johnson’s 200m / 400m double, a feat last achieved by the American in 1995.  Bolt will not be racing.

Another to have announced that he will be hanging up his spikes is one of Britain’s favourites and certainly its most successful long-distance runner. Mo Farah will be hoping that the decibel levels reached in the London Olympics are matched as he bids to win the 10,000m at home for the final time.

Farah is the only man to achieve an incredible triple double – winning gold medals in two events in three successive major Championships and he is keen to put on another spectacular 5,000m and 10,000m show.

Heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson leads the British women’s medal hopes and will be bidding to step out of the shadows of the now retired Jessica Ennis-Hill.

Another expected highlight is the women’s 400m final, which could see the legendary nine-time world champion Allyson Felix step back into the stadium where she won her first individual Olympic title. Felix, the defending 400m world champion, is one of the mega stars of world athletics, having won her first IAAF World Championship gold medal as a 19-year-old.

One of the most highly anticipated showdowns looks set to be repeated on the London track as defending 200m champion Dafne Schippers from the Netherlands clashes with Olympic champion, Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson. The burgeoning rivalry with the pair first emerged two years ago at the IAAF World Championships in Beijing where Schippers ran to gold in a championship record time of 21.63, making her the third fastest woman over the distance in history, before Thompson got the better of her in Rio to win her second Olympic gold.

At the London Olympics the crowd made so much noise when Mo Farah won his second gold that the finish-line camera shook – expect the levels to be raised still further to give two great athletes the send-off (or sound-off) they deserve!

London and the wider world will say farewell to two of the greatest athletes as they run off into the distance.  Bolt, holder of three world records, eight gold medals and the title as the fastest man to have ever lived, will simply get there faster!