Russia competed at every edition of the

IAAF 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 ...

1993 to the 2017 World Championships, from which its athletes have been banned from competing as Russian. In order for Russian nationals to compete at the World Athletics Championship (from 2017 on), they must be approved as authorised neutral athletes by the

IAAF 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 for ...

. Prior to 1993, Russian athletes competed for the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. Russia has the second-highest medal total among nations at the competition (153), after the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

. At 47

gold medals A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have bee ...

, it holds the third-highest total after the United States and

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. It has had the most success in women's events and in field events. As a major nation in the

sport of athletics Athletics is a group of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping, throwing sports, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and racewalking ...

, it typically sent a delegation numbering over 100 athletes. It topped the medal table at the 2001 tournament, overtaking the United States following the redistribution of medals due to doping cases. Russia also initially finished top of the medal table at the 2013 Moscow Championships, but lost this position due to doping disqualifications of its athletes. Russia's performance at the competition has been strongly affected by doping. Furthermore, the country's doping problems are distinct because in Russia doping is supplied to the athletes by the government. The country was banned from competing in 2017 due to the state-sponsored doping and Russians had to gain special dispensation to compete as

Authorised Neutral Athletes Authorised Neutral Athlete (ANA) is a capacity under which athletes can compete at international sporting competitions without representing their nations, as is standard convention under the Olympic Charter. As of August 2022, only Russian and ...

. Various members of the Russian delegation have been banned for doping at every edition of the competition it has competed at, with the exceptions of 2003 and 2015 (though Russian medalists in both those years were subsequently banned). Russia's most successful athlete at the competition is horizontal jumps specialist

Tatyana Lebedeva Tatyana Romanovna Lebedeva (russian: Татьяна Романовна Лебедева, born 21 July 1976) is a Russian track and field athlete who competes in both the long jump and triple jump events. She is one of the most successful athle ...

, who between 2001 and 2009 won two

triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down th ...

gold medals, a

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a gr ...

title, and two further silver medals. Women's

pole vault Pole vaulting, also known as pole jumping, is a track and field event in which an athlete uses a long and flexible pole, usually made from fiberglass or carbon fiber, as an aid to jump over a bar. Pole jumping competitions were known to the Myc ...

Yelena Isinbayeva Yelena Gadzhievna Isinbayeva ( rus, Елена Гаджиевна Исинбаева, p=jɪˈlʲɛnə gɐˈdʐɨjɪvnə ɪsʲɪnˈbajɪvə; born 3 June 1982) is a Russian former pole vaulter. She is a two-time Olympic gold medalist (2004 and 20 ...

has also won three gold medals, in addition to a bronze.

Yuliya Pechonkina Yuliya Sergeyevna Pechonkina, née Nosova (russian: Юлия Серге́евна Печёнкина, born 21 April 1978 in Krasnoyarsk) is a Russian former athlete who specialized in the 400 metres hurdles and 4 × 400 metres relay. She was prev ...

, a

400 metres hurdles The 400 metres hurdles is a track and field hurdling event. The event has been on the Olympic athletics programme since 1900 for men and since 1984 for women. On a standard outdoor track, 400 metres is the length of the inside lane, once a ...

and relay athlete, has won the most medals for Russia, with her total of seven. The most successful Russian man at the World Championships is

high jump The high jump is a track and field event in which competitors must jump unaided over a horizontal bar placed at measured heights without dislodging it. In its modern, most-practiced format, a bar is placed between two standards with a crash mat f ...

er Yaroslav Rybakov, who won three high jump silvers before becoming champion in 2009.

Medal table

Medalists

Doping

References

IAAF Statistics Book – IAAF World Championships London 2017Kenya at the 2017 World Championships in Athletics
{{Russia at the World Championships in Athletics

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...

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 ...