(ATR) The IAAF has gone from the feast of the 2017 World Championships in London to the famine of the 2019 edition in Qatar.
The empty seats throughout the Khalifa International Stadium have been hard to miss during the first three days of the competition. The announced attendance for the opening session on Friday night was 13,288 in the 48,000 seat stadium. It appeared the crowd was even less over the weekend.
The Guardian reported last week that organizers in Doha had sold only 50,000 tickets for the 10 days of competition.Commentators mentioned that the crowd and the atmosphere on Friday were boosted by the presence of Kenyan and Ethiopian migrant workers who came to cheer on their athletes in the distance finals.
By comparison, an impact study released after London 2017 revealed that more than 705,000 tickets were sold.
While the air conditioning in the Khalifa stadium is keeping the athletes competing there from being exposed to the high heat and humidity of Qatar, there is no such relief for the distance events being held outside the stadium.
The women’s marathon was scheduled to start just before midnight on Friday night to avoid the worst of the weather. But temperatures of 33 degrees Celsius (91 degrees Fahrenheit) and high humidity took a serious toll on the field. Only 40 of the 68 competitors who began the race were able to finish it.
Similar issues also affected the men’s and women’s 50km walk that began at 11:30 on Saturday night and the women’s 20km walk which began just before midnight on Sunday. The men’s 20km walk and men’s marathon are also scheduled to start in the middle of the night later this week.
World champion decathlete Kevin Mayer of France was one of many athletes questioning the IAAF decision to hold the championships in Qatar.
"We can all see it's a disaster, there is no one in the stands, and the heat has not been adapted at all," Mayer told L'Equipe.
"We haven't really prioritised athletes when organising the championships here. It makes it difficult."
Denise Lewis, who won heptathlon gold at Sydney 2000 for Great Britain, told the BBC "The athletes, they work so hard, they try to peak at the right time for an empty stadium. I just think it’s not right. Our governing body has let our athletes down massively."
The championships, traditionally held in mid-August at the end of the summer outdoor season, were pushed back to late September in an attempt to avoid the extreme heat of the Qatari summer.
The IAAF and its President Sebastian Coe have always said that for the sport to grow it needs to go to new areas of the world. But many are questioning whether that is a logical assumption.
British Olympic champion sprinter Darren Campbell tells the BBC ""What athletics needs now is for the IAAF to really think about what they are doing and, if it means the World Championships unfortunately have to go to countries that will sell out, then that's the way it has to be."
Written by Gerard Farek
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