World Athletics Championships. Budapest. Hungary

I love football “groundhopping”. Travelling to great stadiums where enthusiastic crowds cheer their football teams up. Stamford Bridge – the home ground of Chelsea FC is my favorite one. Never would I have thought to go to an Athletics competition, until my close buddies Alfred and Thomas persuaded me to join them for the World Athletics Championships 2023 in Budapest.

Over the last 30 years, Budapest has emerged as a vibrant metropolis after more than 4 decades under communist regime.

The organisers have purpose built a completely new athletics stadium in a newly devloped part of the city not far from the city centre.

Budapest was a fantastic host. Nationalities from all across the world supported their athletes. A truly multicultural event perfectly organised.

For me personally, the running events were the most impressive disciplines. To watch the world’s fastest human beings fully focussed on their start, such as Kayla White from the US for the 200m semi-finals, and….

…Kenneth Bednarek’s explosive start for the 200m men’s semi-finals.

Amazing to watch the world’s fastest men in the 200m finals with Noah Lyles from the US winning one of his three gold medals.

Also interesting to watch are the relays: here 4x100m men.

The one and only Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce winning the 4x100m women’s heat in impressive manner. At the end only the US team was faster than Jamaica.

Also fascinating are the hurdles runs, at what speed the athletes “fly” over the 110cm high obstacles. Here the 400m women’s finals with the famous Dutch Femke Bol winning gold.

The Decathlon is regarded as the “King event” of the championships. Great to take close-up shots from decathletes during the 110m hurdles run.

Noah Lyles was the undisputed king of the games, taking home 3 gold medals for sprint runs as the currently fastest man on earth. On his victory lap he could not catch all the phones thrown at him for selfies.

The Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen is the superstar of medium and long runs. Although he only came second over 1,500m, he won gold over 5,000m in incredible 13:11.30 minutes, which was the fastest time run in 2023.

In her very last attempt in women’s javelin throw Japanese Haruka Kitaguchi beat the field with 66.73metres and became world champion.

The Greek Miltiadis Tentoglou won the men’s long jump with 8.52 metres and a tiny advantage of 2 centimetres over his runner-up.

The women’s triple jump had a heartbeat final: Yulimar Rojas from Venezuela had 2 weak and 3 invalid attempts until she beat all other contestants in her very last attempt with 15.08 metres.

In between the fantastic sports events there was also time to visit some landmarks of this lovely city…

…and indulge in culinary treats during the boiling summer heat.

Hungary and Budapest have shown to the world what sign a truly multicultural, global and peoples uniting high-end sports event could set in our sometimes bipolar world.