The IAAF is celebrating the coming 2017 World Championships in London with a list of the top moments in the history of the competitions, and the record-breaking performances of Jamaica’s Usain Bolt in the 100-meter and 200-meter events at the 2009 staging in Berlin are ranked Number One. Bolt turned in the same kind of performance at the Berlin Championships as he had at the Beijing Olympics in 2008 when he broker the 100 and 200 meter records in an “astonishingly carefree manner,” states the IAAF on its website. Organizers of the 2017 World Championships in London in August deemed his runs in the men’s 100 meters and 200 meters as the best of all time. Bolt was also listed at Number 5 for his defeat of Justin Gatlin of the United States in the men’s 100 meters at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing.

Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce is listed in the top 20 at Number 16 for her gold medal victory in the women’s 100-meter, 200-meter, and 4×100-meter relay at the Moscow World Championships in 2013.

The IAAF World Championships, commonly referred to as the World Championships in Athletics, is a biennial athletics event organized by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). Originally held every four years, first in 1983, the current two-year cycle began in 1991.

The idea of having an Athletics World Championships was around well before the competition’s first event in 1983. In 1913, the IAAF decided that the Olympic Games would serve as the World Championships for athletics. This was considered suitable for over 50 years until in the late 1960s the desire of many IAAF members to have their own World Championships began to grow. In 1976 at the IAAF Council Meeting in Puerto Rico an Athletics World Championships separate from the Olympic Games was approved.

Source: IAAF