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 popul ...

, Sweden, it featured just one event: a men's

50 kilometres race walk The 50 kilometre race walk was an Olympic athletics event that first appeared in 1932 and made its final Olympic appearance in 2021. The racewalking event is competed as a road race. Athletes must always keep in contact with the ground and the ...

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 Veniamin Vasilievich Soldatenko (russian: Вениамин Васильевич Солдатенко, born 4 January 1939) is a retired Soviet athlete who competed mainly in the 50 km walk. He acquired Kazakhstani citizenship after the dissolut ...

(runner-up at the

1972 Olympics 1972 Olympics refers to both: *1972 Winter Olympics, which were held in Sapporo, Japan *1972 Summer Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and commonly known as Munich 1972 (german: München 19 ...

) 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 came second and Finnish walker

Reima Salonen Reima Untamo Salonen (born November 19, 1955 in Taivassalo, Southwest Finland) is a retired race walker from Finland, known for winning the gold medal in the men's 50 km Walk event at the 1982 European Championships in Athens, Greece. A forme ...

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 Swis ...

decided to drop the men's 50 km walk from the Olympic athletics programme for the

1976 Montreal Olympics Events January * January 3 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 11 – The 1976 Phil ...

, despite its constant presence at the games since

1932 Events January * January 4 – The British authorities in India arrest and intern Mahatma Gandhi and Vallabhbhai Patel. * January 9 – Sakuradamon Incident: Korean nationalist Lee Bong-chang fails in his effort to assassinate Emperor Hir ...

. 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 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 ...

and

3000 metres The 3000 metres or 3000-metre run is a track running event, also commonly known as the "3K" or "3K run", where 7.5 laps are run around an outdoor 400 m track, or 15 laps around a 200 m indoor track. It is debated whether the 3000m shoul ...

run at the 1980 Moscow Olympics. The competition came of age at the 41-event

1983 World Championships in Athletics The 1st 1983 World Championships in Athletics were run under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations and were held at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland between 7 and 14 August 1983. Summary The overall med ...

, 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 Men's athletics competitions 1970s in Malmö