2007 World Championships in Athletics
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2007 World Championships in Athletics
Host city	Osaka, Japan
Nations participating	200
Athletes participating	1,978
Events	47
Opening ceremony	August 24, 2007
Closing ceremony	September 2, 2007
Main Stadium	Nagai Stadium

Opening ceremony

The 11th World Championships in Athletics, under the auspices of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), were held at Nagai Stadium in Osaka, Japan from August 24 to September 2, 2007. 200 of the IAAF's 212 member federations entered a total of 1,978 athletes, the greatest number of competitors at any World Championships to date.¹²

Bidding process

Having bid unsuccessfully to host the 2008 Summer Olympics,³ Osaka was one of three cities to express an interest in hosting the 2007 World Championships alongside Budapest, Hungary and Berlin, Germany. By the IAAF's October 1, 2002 deadline, Budapest and Berlin had both withdrawn their bids, and Osaka was announced as the host city on November 15, 2002 as the sole remaining candidate.⁴ Berlin later bid successfully for the 2009 World Championships.⁵

Major themes

Scene from the women's 200 m final.

The American women's 4 × 400 m relay team celebrate.

Japanese athlete Yuki Yamazaki is carried off the track having collapsed with exhaustion after the 50km walk.

The victory ceremony for the men's javelin.

Scene from a 110 m hurdles heat in the men's decathlon.

Doping concerns

The IAAF stepped up its "war on doping" at the Osaka games, taking in excess of 1,000 drug tests for the first time ⁶ and lobbying the World Anti-Doping Agency to adopt stiffer penalties for first-time doping offences in its code of practice.⁷ Before the Championships, former Olympic champion Ed Moses had voiced concerns about the extent of doping in the sport, and had even predicted that a medallist at the event would be found to have taken a banned substance.⁸ Despite these fears, the IAAF announced that only one of the samples taken over the course of the Championships was "suspicious" and required more examination.⁹ The governing body refused to elaborate further until more was known, but the French hurdler Naman Keïta admitted to having failed a drug test.¹⁰ The IAAF later confirmed that Keïta had tested positive for testosterone in an out-of-competition test at a training camp, and labelled the World Championships 'drug-free'.¹¹

Weather conditions

The Championships were held during an unseasonably hot summer in Japan, in contrast to the cool, wet and windy conditions of Helsinki two years earlier.¹² Temperatures earlier in the month had reached 40°C (104°F), killing several people.¹³ Temperatures had eased somewhat by the start of the event,¹⁴ but with early-morning temperatures around 30°C and humidity high, the IAAF maintained a colour-coded advisory scale warning of the risk of heat stroke.¹⁵ Casualties of the heat were not as high as initially feared, but dozens of athletes failed to finish the walks and marathons and a few did require medical treatment.¹⁴ Some athletes in shorter events blamed poor performances on the difficult conditions.¹⁶

Attendance

Concerns had been raised in the week running up to the Championships about the low level of ticket sales - only 46% of seats had been filled by August 20.¹⁷ The Nagai Stadium was less than half full for the opening ceremony, and there were around 15,000 empty seats on the night of the men's 100 m final.¹⁸ A number of reasons were cited for the poor attendance, including high ticket prices (especially since the streets were lined during the marathons),¹⁹¹⁸ the hot weather¹⁹ and the disappointing performance of the Japanese team.¹⁹ IAAF vice-president Sebastian Coe also suggested that the length of the Championships may have to be shortened in future to sustain the public's interest.²⁰

Notable performances

Despite no world records being broken, the Championships saw a number of significant personal and team achievements. The United States dominated the overall standings ahead of Kenya and Russia, equalling its best ever medal haul (first achieved in 1991) with 26, fourteen of them golds. The U.S. also set another Championship first by triumphing in all four relay races.²¹ These accomplishments were highlighted by three individual performances: Tyson Gay and Allyson Felix collected three gold medals each (Gay in the 100 and 200 metres and the 4 × 100 m relay, Felix in the 200 m and the two women's relays), a feat previously achieved only by Marita Koch, Carl Lewis and Maurice Greene;²¹ while Kenyan-born Bernard Lagat became the first man to win both the 1500 and 5000 m titles at the same World Championships.²² Perhaps the most unlikely American medal came from 110 m hurdler David Payne, who as first alternate had not travelled to Osaka with the rest of the team. After Dominique Arnold withdrew from the event with an injury, Payne only arrived in Japan the night before the heats, and proceeded to move through the rounds before taking bronze with a personal best.²²

Amongst prominent European successes were Swede Carolina Klüft's third consecutive world heptathlon title with a European record score, the victory of 39 year-old German Franka Dietzsch in the discus, which made her the second-oldest world champion ever²³ and Nelson Évora's win in the triple jump, beating world-leading Brazilian Jadel Gregorio and defending champion Walter Davis. Christine Ohuruogu of Great Britain and Northern Ireland claimed a surprise gold in the women's 400 metres, less than a month after the expiry of a year-long ban imposed for missing three drug tests,²⁴ while high jumper Kyriakos Ioannou claimed the first ever medal for Cyprus in a World Championships.²⁵ Russia's Tatyana Lebedeva just missed out on an unprecedented long jump/triple jump double, but still ended up with a gold and a silver medal.²⁶

African countries were typically well represented in the middle and long-distance events, with Kenyans claiming both the men's and women's marathon titles and Ethiopia winning three golds.

Host nation Japan gained its only medal on the final day with a bronze for Reiko Tosa in the women's marathon.

Men's results

Track

2003 | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 | 2011

Event:	Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
100 m	Tyson Gay  United States	9.85	Derrick Atkins  Bahamas	9.91 NR	Asafa Powell  Jamaica	9.96
	Powell got the best start and led the race halfway through, but Gay caught up and ran past Powell with some 30 meters left, being able to hold up his top speed longer. Powell seemed to get tense in the end and admitted to giving up when he realised he was out of contention27, as even Atkins ran past him in the last moments of the race.
200 m	Tyson Gay  United States	19.76 CR	Usain Bolt  Jamaica	19.91	Wallace Spearmon  United States	20.05
	Gay became only the third male athlete to complete the sprint double at a World Championship.28 Spearmon finished one hundredth of a second ahead of Rodney Martin to win bronze.
400 m	Jeremy Wariner  United States	43.45 WL	LaShawn Merritt  United States	43.96 PB	Angelo Taylor  United States	44.32
	The United States completed a clean sweep of the medals, with Wariner successfully defending his title. Merritt and Taylor claimed their first individual World Championship medals. Merritt ran under 44 seconds for the first time.
800 m	Alfred Kirwa Yego  Kenya	1:47.09	Gary Reed  Canada	1:47.10	Yuriy Borzakovskiy  Russia	1:47.39
	After a slow 55 second first lap, Reed of Canada held the lead, followed closely by Abraham Chepkirwok. The final 100 meters produced a frenetic sprint to the finish in which Kirwa Yego nipped Reed at the line.
1500 m	Bernard Lagat  United States	3:34.77	Rashid Ramzi  Bahrain	3:35.00 SB	Shadrack Korir  Kenya	3:35.04
	Kenyan-born Lagat outkicked the field in a close finish (eight athletes were within a second of first place), holding off Ramzi to win the first championship 1500 m gold for the United States since the 1908 Olympics.
5000 m	Bernard Lagat  United States	13:45.87	Eliud Kipchoge  Kenya	13:46.00	Moses Kipsiro  Uganda	13:46.75
	A slow, tactical race saw the athletes remain bunched until Mohammed Farah tried to pull away at the beginning of the final lap. The Briton dropped back to fifth around the last bend, however, and Lagat surged past Kipchoge on the home straight to become the first ever winner of a world 1500/5000 m double.
10,000 m	Kenenisa Bekele  Ethiopia	27:05.90 SB	Sileshi Sihine  Ethiopia	27:09.03	Martin Mathathi  Kenya	27:12.17
	Zersenay Tadese set a fast pace for most of the race (because he knew he could not outsprint Bekele, according to SBS commentators), gradually reducing the pack to 4. Mathathi took the lead with two laps to go, and Tadese fell back to finish fourth. The two Ethiopians went past Mathathi at the bell, with Bekele sprinting away in the last 100m to win his third consecutive title.
Marathon	Luke Kibet  Kenya	2:15:59	Mubarak Hassan Shami  Qatar	2:17:18	Viktor Röthlin  Switzerland	2:17:25
	Kenyan William Kiplagat, who had held a medal position for much of the race, faded badly to finish 8th, in a race where 57 out of 94 starters finished. Swiss Röthlin ran a well-paced race to take a surprise medal. Eritrean Yared Asmerom, along with three Japanese athletes, was unlucky to finish without medals, despite well-timed surges. Japan won the World Cup race, with Korea and Kenya also picking up medals in the team event.
110 m H	Liu Xiang  People's Republic of China	12.95	Terrence Trammell  United States	12.99	David Payne  United States	13.02 PB
	Olympic champion Liu came from behind to claim his first World Championship gold. Trammell, leader for much of the race, took silver, while Payne won the bronze despite only arriving in Osaka as an alternate the day before the event began.22
400 m H	Kerron Clement  United States	47.61 WL	Félix Sánchez  Dominican Republic	48.01 SB	Marek Plawgo  Poland	48.12 NR
	Despite a hesitation before clearing the penultimate hurdle, Clement set a world leading time to claim gold.
3000 m SC	Brimin Kipruto  Kenya	8:13.82	Ezekiel Kemboi  Kenya	8:16.94	Richard Mateelong  Kenya	8:17.59
	The Kenyans continued their dominance of the steeplechase with a medal sweep.
20 km Walk	Jefferson Pérez  Ecuador	1:22:20	Francisco Javier Fernández  Spain	1:22:40	Hatem Ghoula  Tunisia	1:22:40
	After having led for most of the way, Italy's Ivano Brugnetti was disqualified after 12 km. Fernández was disqualified after having lifted inside the stadium, to overtake Ghoula metres before the line and fourth-place Eder Sánchez was awarded the bronze. However, the Spaniard was later reinstated. This was world record-holder Pérez's third straight title.
50 km Walk	Nathan Deakes  Australia	3:43:53 SB	Yohann Diniz  France	3:44:22 SB	Alex Schwazer  Italy	3:44:38
	China's Yu Chaohong took an early lead in hot conditions, but was overtaken before the halfway mark by the leading group.
4 × 100 m	United States Darvis Patton Wallace Spearmon Tyson Gay LeRoy Dixon	37.78 WL	Jamaica Marvin Anderson Usain Bolt Nesta Carter Asafa Powell	37.89 NR	Great Britain and N.I. Christian Malcolm Craig Pickering Marlon Devonish Mark Lewis-Francis	37.90 SB
	The United States led throughout to win, giving Gay his third gold medal of the Championships. Powell received the final baton in fifth place but powered ahead of second-placed Lewis-Francis on the home straight to win silver for the Jamaicans in a national record time.
4 × 400 m	United States LaShawn Merritt Angelo Taylor Darold Williamson Jeremy Wariner	2:55.56 WL	Bahamas Avard Moncur Micheal Mathieu Andrae Williams Chris Brown	2:59.18 SB	Poland Marek Plawgo Daniel Dąbrowski Marcin Marciniszyn Kacper Kozłowski	3:00.05 SB
	With the three individual 400 m medallists on their team, the U.S. were strong favourites going into the race and duly led from start to finish. Jamaica held second place after three legs, but anchor Sanjay Ayre was passed by Brown on the back straight and Kozłowski on the home straight.
AR Area record | CR championship record | NR national record | OR Olympic record | PB/PR personal best/record | SB seasonal best | WL world leading (in a given season) | WR world record

Field

2003 | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 | 2011

Event:	Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
High Jump	Donald Thomas  Bahamas	2.35 WL	Yaroslav Rybakov  Russia	2.35 WL	Kyriakos Ioannou  Cyprus	2.35 WL
	Thomas won the gold with his first attempt at 2.35 m. Olympic champion Stefan Holm failed to clear this height - his best of 2.33 was good enough only for fourth. Ioannou's bronze was the first ever for Cyprus at any World Championships.
Pole Vault	Brad Walker  United States	5.86	Romain Mesnil  France	5.86 SB	Danny Ecker  Germany	5.81
	Walker was declared the winner on countback as he had cleared 5.86 with his first attempt, Mesnil with his second.
Long jump	Irving Saladino  Panama	8.57 AR	Andrew Howe  Italy	8.47 NR	Dwight Phillips  United States	8.30
	Saladino moved into the outright lead with his third round jump of 8.46. This distance looked set to win the title until Howe went 1 cm further in the final round. However, with the very last jump of the contest, Saladino flew at 8.57 to seal a dramatic gold for Panama.
Triple Jump	Nelson Évora  Portugal	17.74 NR	Jadel Gregório  Brazil	17.59	Walter Davis  United States	17.33 SB
	Évora assumed the lead from the very first jump and truly consolidated his victory with a second-best world leading mark at the third attempt. Gregório, the 2007 world leader, was only able to surpass Évora's first jump with his penultimate effort, leapfrogging defending champion Walter Davis, who had held second place since the opening round.
Shot Put	Reese Hoffa  United States	22.04	Adam Nelson  United States	21.61 SB	Andrei Mikhnevich  Belarus	21.27 SB
	Hoffa held the lead throughout the competition making the four longest throws of the final. Defending champion Nelson had only two legal throws, in the first two rounds. Dutchman Rutger Smith finished a close fourth and Dane Joachim Olsen was disappointed not to record a mark.
Discus	Gerd Kanter  Estonia	68.94	Robert Harting  Germany	66.68	Rutger Smith  Netherlands	66.42
	Double Olympic, European and double defending champion Virgilijus Alekna disappointed, finishing fourth with 65.24 m. With his bronze, Dutchman Smith set a new record, becoming the first person to win a World Championship medal in both shot put (a silver in 2005) and discus throw.
Javelin	Tero Pitkämäki  Finland	90.33	Andreas Thorkildsen  Norway	88.61	Breaux Greer  United States	86.21
	Pitkämäki's second round throw of 89.16 proved enough for victory. With the title already won, he went further still with the final throw of the competition.
Hammer	Ivan Tsikhan  Belarus	83.63 WL	Primož Kozmus  Slovenia	82.29	Libor Charfreitag  Slovakia	81.60 SB
	Tsikhan left it late to win his third consecutive world title. Lying fourth going into the final round, he produced a throw of 83.63 which none of the three remaining competitors could better.
Decathlon	Roman Šebrle  Czech Republic	8676	Maurice Smith  Jamaica	8644 NR	Dmitriy Karpov  Kazakhstan	8586 SB
	Olympic champion Šebrle, World Championship runner-up in 2003 and 2005, won his first world title in a close contest. Smith led the standings through eight events, but the medals were then decided in the javelin discipline. Despite season best throws from Smith and Karpov, veteran Šebrle moved up from third to first in the overall standings thanks to a personal best of 71.18. The Czech then did enough to hold onto his lead in the concluding 1500m. Smith's score of 8,644 points was a huge improvement on the previous Jamaican record. Defending champion Bryan Clay withdrew injured after four events.
AR Area record | CR championship record | NR national record | OR Olympic record | PB/PR personal best/record | SB seasonal best | WL world leading (in a given season) | WR world record

Women's Results

Track

2003 | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 | 2011

Event:	Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
100 m details	Veronica Campbell  Jamaica	11.01	Lauryn Williams  United States	11.01 SB	Carmelita Jeter  United States	11.02 PB
	It was arguably the closest World Championship 100 meter final for women (to date, the 1993 final is the only other race where the top two athletes clocked the same time).29 With the top five finishing within five hundredths of a second, and with both gold and silver medalists, Veronica Campbell and Lauryn Williams, respectively, finishing at 11.01 seconds, it took some minutes for the judges to determine who had won.
200 m details	Allyson Felix  United States	21.81 WL	Veronica Campbell  Jamaica	22.34 SB	Susanthika Jayasinghe  Sri Lanka	22.63
	Felix claimed a convincing victory with a personal best of 21.81, the fastest World Championship time since Inger Miller's gold medal run in 1999. Jayasinghe edged Torri Edwards for third to claim her first World Championship medal in ten years.
400 m	Christine Ohuruogu  Great Britain and N.I.	49.61 PB	Nicola Sanders  Great Britain and N.I.	49.65 PB	Novlene Williams  Jamaica	49.66 SB
	Williams led the field approaching the home straight with the Russian Natalya Antyukh and American athlete Dee Dee Trotter ahead of the two Britons at this point. However, Ohuruogu and Sanders closed quickly on the other athletes. Williams held the lead up until the final five metres, where she tied up quickly, allowing the two British athletes to take the first two medals on a dip. Ohuruogu surprised the field to take the gold medal with a personal best, just 24 days after her 12 month suspension for missing three out-of-competition doping tests expired. 3024
800 m	Janeth Jepkosgei  Kenya	1:56.04 WL	Hasna Benhassi  Morocco	1:56.99	Mayte Martínez  Spain	1:57.62 PB
	Jepkosgei led from start to finish.
1500 m	Maryam Yusuf Jamal  Bahrain	3:58.75 SB	Yelena Soboleva  Russia	3:58.99	Iryna Lishchynska  Ukraine	4:00.69 SB
	World number one Soboleva led from the gun until passed by Jamal on the back straight of the last lap. Jamal's sprint failed to break the field, but she just managed to hold off Soboleva for the win.
5000 m	Meseret Defar  Ethiopia	14:57.91	Vivian Cheruiyot  Kenya	14:58.50	Priscah Jepleting Cherono  Kenya	14:59.21
	Defar added the world title to her Olympic gold medal. A personal best of 14:59.26 by Kenyan Sylvia Kibet left her in fourth, just five hundredths of a second outside the medals.
10,000 m	Tirunesh Dibaba  Ethiopia	31:55.41 SB	Elvan Abeylegesse  Turkey	31:59.40	Kara Goucher  United States	32:02.05 SB
	Dibaba fell behind the leaders half way through the race, with obvious stomach trouble, however she managed to pull back to the front and take historic back-to-back 10,000 m titles. Abeylegesse, was one of two athletes, who lost her shoe, and then had to stop to put it back on her foot before rejoining the race. Great Britain's Joanne Pavey went into third place in the penultimate lap, leading until the home straight, when Goucher went back to claim the medal.
Marathon	Catherine Ndereba  Kenya	2:30:37	Zhou Chunxiu  People's Republic of China	2:30:45	Reiko Tosa  Japan	2:30:55
	Ndereba pulled clear over the final two kilometres to win her second world title. Tosa delighted the home crowd by passing Zhu Xiaolin over the closing stages to claim the bronze.
100 m H	Michelle Perry  United States	12.46	Perdita Felicien  Canada	12.49 SB	Delloreen Ennis-London  Jamaica	12.50 PB
	The initial celebrations of Ennis-London31 proved premature as defending champion Perry was confirmed the winner of a close race after an anxious wait.
400 m H	Jana Rawlinson  Australia	53.31 SB	Yuliya Pechenkina  Russia	53.50 SB	Anna Jesień  Poland	53.92
	Rawlinson ran her fastest time of the season to hold off Pechenkina for the win.
3000 m SC	Yekaterina Volkova  Russia	9:06.57 CR / PB	Tatyana Petrova  Russia	9:09.19 PB	Eunice Jepkorir  Kenya	9:20.09
	Volkova set the second fastest time in the event's relatively short history to win from compatriot Petrova.
20 km Walk	Olga Kaniskina  Russia	1:30:09	Tatyana Shemyakina  Russia	1:30:42	María Vasco  Spain	1:30:47
	Both Kaniskina and Shemyakina held on to their final places since they left the stadium for the first time, with the winner performing a very strong and consistent race. María Vasco raced from behind surpassing Tatyana Sibileva to prevent another Russian clean sweep.
4 × 100 m	United States Lauryn Williams Allyson Felix Mikele Barber Torri Edwards	41.98 WL	Jamaica Sheri-Ann Brooks Kerron Stewart Simone Facey Veronica Campbell	42.01 SB	Belgium Olivia Borlée Hanna Mariën Élodie Ouédraogo Kim Gevaert	42.75 NR
	Individual 100 m champion Campbell almost ran down Edwards' lead on the final leg, but the U.S. sprinter hung on to ensure a successful title defence.
4 × 400 m	United States DeeDee Trotter Allyson Felix Mary Wineberg Sanya Richards	3:18:55 WL	Jamaica Shericka Williams Shereefa Lloyd Davita Prendagast Novlene Williams	3:19:73 NR	Great Britain and N.I. Christine Ohuruogu Marilyn Okoro Lee McConnell Nicola Sanders	3:20:04 NR
	Felix pulled past Lloyd on the second leg to put the United States into first place, where they remained. The gold was Felix's third of the Championships. Sanders ran down Russian Natalya Antyukh on the finishing straight to win bronze for Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
AR Area record | CR championship record | NR national record | OR Olympic record | PB/PR personal best/record | SB seasonal best | WL world leading (in a given season) | WR world record

Field

2003 | 2005 | 2007 | 2009 | 2011

Event:	Gold:		Silver:		Bronze:
High Jump	Blanka Vlašić  Croatia	2.05	Antonietta Di Martino / Anna Chicherova  Italy /  Russia	2.03 Di Martino: NR / Chicherova: PB
	After an outstanding season, Vlašić was the big favourite coming into the final, and she did not disappoint. Di Martino and Chicherova gave the Croatian a run for her money though, as they both cleared 2.03 and shared second place. With Russians Slesarenko and Savchenko both clearing 2.00, this was the first ever women's high jump competition with 5 jumpers over 2.00 and also the first ever with 3 jumpers clearing 2.03.
Pole Vault	Yelena Isinbayeva  Russia	4.80	Kateřina Baďurová  Czech Republic	4.75 NR	Svetlana Feofanova  Russia	4.75
	Isinbayeva was the only one to vault over 4.80 m. Then she attacked the world record trying to jump 5.02 m, but failed. Three athletes beat the height of 4.75 m, but only Baďurová succeeded with her first attempt, taking silver. Feofanova took bronze, beating Monika Pyrek thanks to her better first attempt on 4.70 m.
Long Jump	Tatyana Lebedeva  Russia	7.03	Lyudmila Kolchanova  Russia	6.92	Tatyana Kotova  Russia	6.90 SB
	Lebedeva twice jumped 7.03 m to head a Russian clean sweep of the medals.
Triple Jump	Yargelis Savigne  Cuba	15.28 WL	Tatyana Lebedeva  Russia	15.07	Hrysopiyí Devetzí