Opinion: Major stars skipping world championships does nothing for the sport

We are days away from the start of the 2023 World Athletics Championships in Budapest, and one of the biggest storylines heading into the championships is whether two of the world’s biggest athletes and reigning world champions will be there to compete. 

Last month, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone declared that she would only run the 400m and not her staple event, the 400m hurdles, despite there being no scheduling conflict. On Friday, her coach, Bobby Kersee, confirmed that she will not run at worlds due to a minor injury, and will instead take time to recover and shift her focus to Paris 2024. Athing Mu, the 800m world and Olympic champion (who is also coached by Kersee) has only raced twice this season and has been very non-committal on whether she will start the women’s 800m prelims on Aug. 23. Kersee has said that Mu’s training is going well, but that the main focus is the Olympics next year. The reigning 400m world champion, Michael Norman, has become the latest champion to withdraw from the 2023 championships, attributing his decision to a “frustrating season.”

As much as the Olympics are great for launching the major stars of track and field into the stratosphere of greatness and popularity, having the world’s best athletes skip the world championships to focus on it does not help grow the sport, nor does it help the athlete. 

Usain Bolt is undisputedly the best-known athlete to come out of track and field in the past quarter-century, but viewership has declined since his 2017 departure. A reason why the sport grew under Bolt’s tenure was his ability to shine and perform at major championships when it counted, winning eight Olympic gold and 14 world championship medals during his 13-year professional career.

Although most will remember Bolt for his electrifying antics and lightning-bolt celebrations after gold-medal-winning runs, it was his world-record-time of 9.58 seconds at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin that put him in the history books. Bolt never missed or skipped a world championship or Olympic Games prep to focus on the next thing.

Unless you’re constantly setting world or national records, track and field operates as a “what have you done for me lately” sport. Few recall those who reached the final or exited in the heats, but everyone tunes in for awe-inspiring performances and to witness top-tier athletes competing on the grandest stage, for example, Sifan Hassan, Faith Kipyegon or Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who are all competing in at least two events at 2023 worlds, with Hassan competing in three.

The essence here is that a greater presence of high-calibre athletes at major championships elevates the competition’s intensity and boosts viewership, yielding long-term benefits for Diamond League or domestic championship events the following year. The concept is simple—would you rather present a predicted outcome to a small audience, or address a larger audience with a sense of unpredictability, harnessing the potential for remarkable results?

While the Olympics present a coveted pathway to fame and glory, the decision of athletes to bypass world championships paradoxically obstructs the sport’s expansion, hindering the very athletes the world looks up to. The challenges and intense demands of the marathon often justify an athlete’s withdrawal from major marathons or world championships in the weeks leading up to the race. But for distances shorter than 5,000m, while each successive round poses its own strain, these exertions are less likely to impact an athlete’s preparations for the subsequent year’s Olympics than a marathon. 

Casual fans of the sport tune in to watch the best in the world race, threaten world records and triumph, but if they aren’t there, there will always be that  question: “What if?”