...What happened to Winter?

The organisation of the 1985 World Indoor Games, the prelude to a true World Indoor Championships, was entrusted to the French Federation, who will be organising the 6th edition of the IAAF World Indoor Championships on March 7-9. In 1985 athletes from around 50 countries (who had participation quotas depending on their competition record) competed in the French capital. The general level of competition was relatively poor. The date, January 19-20, was too early and clashed with the American programme. Also, many European countries were conspicuous by their absence. Nevertheless, a few performances remain vivid. Ben Johnson won the 60m, three years before his dramatic disqualification in the Seoul Olympics. East Germany’s Thomas Schönlebe set a world record 45.60 in the 400m. Sweden’s Patrik Sjöberg’s won the high jump. Sergey Bubka captured the first of many indoor titles in the pole vault. The legendary Marita Koch (GDR) sped to gold in the 200m. Stefka Kostadinova (Bulgaria) won the high jump, 11 years before winning her first Olympic title.

The quality of the official World Championships, from Indianapolis 1987 to Barcelona 1995, has been inconsistent but also high enough to justify the creation of the World Indoor Championships. Looking through a list of medallists, one sees the names of many world record holders or Olympic Champions. For example: Paul Ereng (Kenya), Noureddine Morceli (Algeria), Said Aouita (Morocco), Roger Kingdom (USA), Igor Paklin (USSR then Ukraine) and Ulf Timmerman (GDR) among the men. Among the ranks of women stars are Maria Mutola (Mozambique), Merlene Ottey (Jamaica), Heike Drechsler (GDR) Lyudmila Narozhilenko (USSR) (now Ludmila Engquist of Sweden), Stefka Kostadinova (Bulgaria), Heike Henkel (Germany), Galina Chistyakova (USSR) and Inessa Kravets (USSR then Ukraine).

Many efforts have been made to ensure that the 1997 World Indoor Championships is bigger and better than previous editions. By subsidising the travel costs for a quota of athletes from all Member Federations the IAAF is giving opportunity to countries with no real experience of indoor athletics. But the most spectacular reform, which is valid for all future IAAF World Championships, is that competition awards are now available to athletes. This decision has been inevitable ever since athletics escaped from an outdated amateurism and the hypocrisy of under-the-table payments at the beginning of the 1980s. As the top Olympic sport, athletics needed to accept a level of "professionalism" as a way of guaranteeing the presence of the sport’s biggest names.

Now, whatever the season, the absence of money will no longer be an excuse not to compete. Hopefully, a new attitude will be confirmed at the Palais Omnisports in Bercy, Paris and its vast arena will echo to the exploits of the world’s finest athletes.

Robert Parienté, a former editor of L’Equipe newspaper, is a member of the IAAF and IOCPress Commissions, and author of many books about athletics. An unabridged version of this article appears in Vol. 12, issue 1 of the IAAF Magazine, which can be ordered from the "IAAF Store".

Robert Pariente examines the long and fascinating history of indoor athletics before previewing the 6th IAAF World Indoor Championships in Paris