Qater Threw a Party for Track Athletes and Nobody Came

Moments after the greatest 10.83 seconds of Dina Asher-Smith’s life, the British sprinter grabbed a union flag from her mother and began a victory lap to celebrate her world championship 100m silver medal. But as she trotted round the 40,000-seat Khalifa stadium in Doha on Sunday night she was greeted by banks of empty seats and a ghostly silence.

According to observers, there were no more than 1,000 people still in attendance and many of them were journalists.  Asher-Smith’s teammate Beth Dobbin bluntly said, “I watched Dina’s victory lap and that was a bit heartbreaking--  I feel like she was robbed of that moment.”

The Doha organizers have blamed the start of the work week and an event schedule designed for European TV audiences for the low attendance.  But that cannot hide a simple fact that the 2019 world athletics championships have been a PR disaster for athletics and for Qatar-- a country which has spent the past decade buying up rights to host major events, including the 2022 football World Cup.

Olympic heptathlon champion Denise Lewis said, “Our governing body has let our athletes down massively.” Meanwhile, Eurosport mocked the lack of crowd for the women’s sprint final. “The Doha crowd roars with approval,” it tweeted with an animated gif of tumbleweed.

It is all a far cry from the promises made by Qatar in its first bid for these championships eight years ago. “No empty seats,” Qatar promised, adding that “the atmosphere surrounding the world championships will be fantastic”.  Instead the stadium has often looked at least half empty, even though large parts of it have been covered with fabric and the capacity reduced to 21,000. And that is despite attendances being bolstered by organizers giving thousands of migrant workers from Africa and India free tickets.

This was all a disaster foretold by many.  Doha was controversially awarded the championships after having offered nearly $30M towards extra sponsorship and a promise to build 10 new tracks around the world-- mere minutes before the 2014 vote when it defeated Eugene and Barcelona.  The former IAAF board member Helmut Digel called the decision to award the event to Doha  “incomprehensible”.  José María Odriozola, a Spanish IAAF executive well-versed in sports politics, cut to the heart of the matter, saying, “All Doha has is money.”

For many sports federations that is apparently enough, however--- whatever the athletes may think. Yet with every passing hour, more of them are voicing discontent. The French decathlete Kevin Mayer, the world record holder, has called the championships a “catastrophe”. Other athletes have claimed they are being treated as “guinea pigs” by a governing body that has forced marathon runners and race walkers to compete in 88-degree heat and high humidity, which has led to some being carried off the track in wheelchairs.

As Belarus’s Volha Mazuronak, who early Saturday morning finished fifth in the women’s marathon put it: “I thought I wouldn’t finish. It’s disrespect towards the athletes. A bunch of high-ranked officials gathered and decided that it would take the world championships here but they are sitting in the air conditioning or probably sleeping right now.”

IAAF President Sebastian Coe continues to maintain that track and field must venture into new territories to help spread the word. Tell that to the 1,972 athletes from 208 countries here in Doha. For many this will be the pinnacle of their careers. How sad, then, that it has turned into a nadir for their sport.