The 1976 World Championships in Athletics was the first global, international athletics competition organised by the

International Association of Athletics Federations World Athletics, formerly known as the International Amateur Athletic Federation (from 1912 to 2001) and International Association of Athletics Federations (from 2001 to 2019, both abbreviated as the IAAF) is the international governing body fo ...

(IAAF). Hosted on 18 September 1976 in

Malmö Malmö (, ; da, Malmø ) is the largest city in the Swedish county (län) of Scania (Skåne). It is the third-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg, and the sixth-largest city in the Nordic region, with a municipal pop ...

, Sweden, it featured just one event: a men's 50 kilometres race walk contest. The course passed through the streets of the city and the start and finish points were within

Malmö Stadion Malmö Stadion, often known simply as Stadion before the construction of the new Stadion between 2007 and 2009, is a multi-purpose stadium in Malmö, Sweden. As of 2015, it is the home of association football club IFK Malmö, presently of Div ...

Summary

Soviet athlete Veniamin Soldatenko (runner-up at the 1972 Olympics) was the gold medallist. This made him the first ever IAAF world champion and at 37 years and 258 days he remains the oldest male athlete to win that accolade. Mexico's

Enrique Vera Enrique Daniel Vera Torres, nicknamed ''Rambert'' (born 10 March 1979, in Asunción), is a retired Paraguayan football midfielder who last played for América de Quito. Vera has been primarily based since LDU Quito since 2006, winning the 20 ...

came second and Finnish walker Reima Salonen was third. A total of 42 walkers representing 20 countries entered the championships race and 37 finished, with four failed to finish and one being disqualified. The

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

decided to drop the men's 50 km walk from the Olympic athletics programme for the 1976 Montreal Olympics, despite its constant presence at the games since 1932. The IAAF chose to host its own world championship event instead, a month and a half after the Olympics. It was the first World Championships that the IAAF had hosted separate from the Olympic Games (traditionally the main championship for the sport). This marked the beginning of a move away from this arrangement as a 1976 IAAF Council meeting decided that the organisation would host its own, full-programme, championships on a quadrennial basis. The two-race 1980 World Championships in Athletics filled in for the lack of a women's 400 metres hurdles and 3000 metres run at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The competition came of age at the 41-event 1983 World Championships in Athletics, which is considered the first edition proper.IAAF World Championships in Athletics
GBR Athletics. Retrieved on 2013-09-08.

Records

Results

Participation

* (3) * (3) * (3) * (2) * (2) * (3) * (1) * (1) * (3) * (1) * (2) * (1) * (2) * (3) * (1) * (3) * (1) * (3) * (1) * (3)

References

;Results
IAAF Statistics Book Moscow 2013
(pg. 179). IAAF/ AFTS (2013). Edited by Mark Butler. Retrieved on 2013-09-09.

External links

Official IAAF website
{{DEFAULTSORT:1976 World Championships in Athletics World Athletics Championships

World Championships A world championship is generally an international competition open to elite competitors from around the world, representing their nations, and winning such an event will be considered the highest or near highest achievement in the sport, game, ...

International athletics competitions hosted by Sweden International sports competitions in Malmö

World Championships in Athletics The World Athletics Championships (until 2019 known as the World Championships in Athletics) are a biennial athletics competition organized by World Athletics (formerly IAAF, International Association of Athletics Federations). Alongside the Ol ...

Men's athletics competitions 1970s in Malmö