Women’s 4x400m relay to conclude 2022 World Championships: Sebastian Coe

World Athletics chief Sebastian Coe has informed that the 2022 World Championships will conclude withthe women’s 4x400m relay event in Oregon, United States. The World Championships was originally scheduled to take place this year in August but was postponed for a year.

On International Women’s Day (March 8), the world governing body launched a campaign named ‘#WeGrowAthletics’ which aims at ending gender bias in athletics, and the decision to end the 2022 World Championship with a women’s event is a part of that campaign.

This will be the first time that a women’s event will conclude the World Championships.

“We wanted to make sure that we were sort of trying to break some of the old traditions and we saw no good reason why we shouldn’t finish our World Championship in Oregon not with a male event, but with a female event,” Coe was quoted as saying to Xinhua.

“I’m delighted to be able to say that our timetable now has demonstrated our commitment to this and the last event on the track in Oregon in 2022 World Athletics Championship will be women’s 4x400m relay, which is normally where the men would take a pride to take place.”

World Athletics pledges to review presentation around women’s performances.We are committing to ending the #WorldAthleticsChamps with a women’s event for the first time and will continue to review our traditions.#WeGrowAthletics 📰:https://t.co/klScp02Ytt pic.twitter.com/7BBsXBsHjy

— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) March 8, 2021

Ximena Restrepo became first female World Athletics vice-president in 2019

The two-time Olympic gold medallist also informed that within the next six years all the structures will be equal for men and women. “We have parity of prize money, but we need to do something to balance gender representation and gender equality in our governing structure.

“So what is different about it’s now from a few years ago is that we have targets, we have constitutions that by 2027 all the structures has to be 50-50 and that's important,” he added. The process started in 2019 when World Athletics appointed Ximena Restrepo as its first female vice-president.

Happy International Women’s Day to all the amazing women who continue to blaze the trail and inspire us all. We can all make a difference so #choseToChallenge #WeGrowAthletics https://t.co/uWmfH4xkay

— Seb Coe (@sebcoe) March 8, 2021

“We have much more to do but am confident the pledges, together with those of our partners and stakeholders, will allow more women to hurdle historically established barriers on the way to greater gender equality,” concluded Coe.