The 100m has always been the blue-riband event of any athletics meet, but this season it has had a couple of unlikely challengers to its crown. Middle-distance running is suddenly exciting again: the flagship events of this weekend’s inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championships are in fact likely to be the women’s 800m and men’s 1500m. World Athletics has made its stance clear, positioning them as the third-last race of the Saturday and Sunday night sessions respectively – just before the two 100m and 200m races.
This men’s 1500m is more soap opera than athletics event, the culmination of a series of squabbles and trash-talking back-and-forth that is set to finally combust in Budapest’s Gyula Zsivotzky National Athletics Centre.
