Mo Farah and Usain Bolt ignited the first day of the athletics world championships on Saturday but the event was blighted by dire crowds and yet another high-profile doping scandal for a leading sprinter.
The world athletics championships got off to low-key but high-humidity start in front of a few hundred hardy fans scattered around the 81,000 Luzhniki Stadium on Saturday, with star attraction Usain Bolt ready to be unleashed in the evening.
The American multi-eventer, hailed by sprint king Usain Bolt as the world's greatest athlete, said his exploits have left him this year "feeling physically worn down".
As double Olympic champion Mo Farah knows he is there to be shot at. But such is his self-belief that it will take someone and something special to scupper the Briton's bid to repeat the feat at the world championships in Moscow.
Jamaican sprint king Usain Bolt, who has already conquered the racing track with six Olympic gold medals, may switch to cricket or football after the 2016 Games in Rio de Janerio.
Usain Bolt will fine-tune his preparations for the Rio Olympics by competing at the Anniversary Games in London on July 22.
As the world's best athletes descend on London on Friday to take part in the Olympic Anniversary Games, a group of researchers from Mexico has provided an insight into the physics of one of the greatest athletic performances of all time.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Thursday.
The race to find the continent's fastest woman saw Asher-Smith end the 100m reign of Dutchwoman Daphne Schippers in brilliant style, clocking 10.85, equalling the world's fastest time this year and setting a British record.
Former double world sprint champion Tyson Gay delivered a further body blow to his troubled sport on Sunday when he pulled out of next month's Moscow world championships after failing an out-of-competition dope test.
Usain Bolt will return to London to compete in the IAAF Diamond League meeting at the Olympic Stadium in which he achieved a clean sweep of gold medals last year.
Jamaican track star Usain Bolt is considering retiring after the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. But any plans of going out to grass at the age of 30 will come after three more years of domination that could include a pop at the Commonwealth Games next year and another shot at bettering his own 200m world record.
Olympic champion Usain Bolt responded to last week's surprise sprint defeat in Rome by storming to a world-leading time of 19.79 seconds over 200 metres at the Bislett Diamond League meeting on Thursday.
Usain Bolt will have to qualify for the 100 metres at this year's World Cchampionships after Jamaican officials decided the country's automatic entry into the race should go to his training partner Yohan Blake.
If winning the gold is considered the pinnacle in sport, performing the three-peat is the ultimate achievement. The 14th World Championships in Moscow also witnessed a few such efforts.
Images from the Day Nine of the 14th IAAF World Athletics Championships at Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow.
Usain Bolt is undoubtedly the biggest name in world sport but unless someone emerges who is able to realistically challenge his hegemony then even the majestic Jamaican might begin to lose some of his stardust.
Usain Bolt was made to look human by a combination of a Russian rainstorm and a fired-up Justin Gatlin on Sunday but the Jamaican superstar was still good enough to regain his world 100m title in a surging 9.77 seconds.
Usain Bolt will need to guard against complacency as he begins his bid to win the 100 metres crown while double Olympic champion Mo Farah goes for gold in the 10,000 on the first day of the World Championships on Saturday.
Sprint king Usain Bolt has not yet reached his peak and can lower his world records in the 100 and 200 metres if he has a rival to push him, according to former world champion Frank Fredericks.
That infamous false start is no longer of concern to Usain Bolt as the six-times Olympic gold medallist heads to the world championships in Moscow ready to regain the 100 metres title he lost so ignominiously in 2011.
A year after athletics was at the heart of London 2012 the sport's biennial world championships is in danger of losing its lustre after a series of doping and injury withdrawals have robbed the Moscow event of much of its stardust.
Usain Bolt returned to the scene of his triple Olympic glory and duly delivered for 60,000 camera-flashing fans as he overcame a slow start to win the 100 metres and give the London Anniversary Games the Friday finale it demanded.
Usain Bolt says he is not yet ready for a duel with Justin Gatlin.
Olympic bronze medallist Justin Gatlin is not willing to call his surprising 100 metres victory over world record holder Usain Bolt a fluke.
Dhirubhai may or may not have owned the government; it would seem his son wants to own the market, notes T N Ninan.
American Gatlin, bronze medallist at the London Games after a four-year doping ban, ran 9.94 seconds to edge Usain Bolt by 0.01 in a race that showed the Jamaican has yet to fully recover from the hamstring injury that dogged him earlier in the season.
The 21-year-old stuttered on the penultimate barrier but surged down the home stretch to power across the line and beat her previous record of 51.90 set at the U.S. trials in June.
Six-times Olympic champion Usain Bolt will race over 200 metres at the Paris Golden League meeting on July 6 as part of his buildup for the Moscow world athletics championships in the following month.
Katy Sheen, a physicist at the University of Exeter in the UK, explains how Santa Claus travels over 200,000 times faster than Usain Bolt, the world's fastest man.
Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt and other overseas athletes will be able to compete tax-free in this year's London Diamond League event at the Olympic Stadium after the British finance minister agreed to a "one-off" exemption.
Jamaican Olympic sprint relay gold medallist Nesta Carter has returned an anti-doping violation for the banned stimulant Methylhexanamine after the re-testing of 454 samples from the 2008 Beijing Games, two sources familiar with the case have told Reuters. The Jamaican team of Carter, champion sprinter Usain Bolt and two other sprinters had won a gold medal in the relay at the 2008 Olympics. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said traces of Methylhexanamine were discovered in Carter's "A" sample, part of a batch of 454 from the 2008 Games that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ordered to be re-tested. Carter could face sanctions only if his "B" sample also tests positive for the substance. Reuters has not seen the laboratory results. Neither Carter, who won gold in the 4x100 metres relay with Jamaican team mates Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell and Michael Frater in Beijing, nor his agent replied to repeated requests for comment.
One of his cherished memories was being in the Commonwealth Games village in Kuala Lumpur way back in 1998 and Sachin Tendulkar had that same feeling of deja vu as he dropped in at the Olympic Games athletes village in Rio on Saturday. "That incredible feeling of being in a Games village came back today (Saturday). The memories of being a part of the Indian cricket team during the 1998 CWG kept coming back. The sheer magnitude of the Games can't be compared. But the spirit and energy level is same as 1998, the ambience of being around champions is also no different," Tendulkar told PTI from Rio de Janeiro.
Americans need to get used to Jamaica's men dominating the global sprinting scene because it will not change soon, Jamaican double Olympic silver medallist Yohan Blake said.
Jamaican Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt was beaten in his first race of the 2013 season on Saturday, finishing third in a low-key 400 metre event in his hometown of Kingston.
Olympic sprint champion Usain Bolt said the finding of 31 positive doping samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics marked a rough point for athletics, but backed the World Anti-Doping Agency in its effort to crackdown on drug use in the sport. Thirty-one athletes from six sports could be banned from this year's Rio Olympics after failing dope tests when 454 samples were reexamined from the 2008 Games, the International Olympic Committee said on Tuesday. "It's rough in the sport," the six-times Olympic Champion told British media. "Something that's been tarnishing the sport for years." The IOC said it would begin re-testing athletes likely to take part in the Rio Games to prevent any drug cheats from competing.
Triple London Olympic champion Usain Bolt is injury free and eyeing three gold medals at this year's world championships in Moscow in August.
American Noah Lyles shot to 200 meters world championships gold on Tuesday, providing a bright finish to a day darkened by yet another doping scandal.
David Rudisha lit up Thursday evening with an 800m World record but despite running one of the great Olympic races, he was eclipsed an hour later when Usain Bolt took to the track.
Analysis of the track events in the men's athletics programme.
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