Today marks the 60th anniversary of the first of six high jump world records set by Siberian Valeriy Brumel during a remarkable career which was sadly cut short at 23 years of age due to a motorbike accident.

World Athletics is deeply saddened to hear that Italian middle distance star Paola Pigni – who won an Olympic bronze and two world cross country titles during her highly successful athletics career – died on Friday (11) at the age of 75.

10 June 1981 remains a red-letter day in the long history of 800m running, for it was in Florence late that night that Sebastian Coe lowered his own world record from 1:42.33 to 1:41.73.

On 7 August 1992, at the Barcelona Olympic Games, two women lined up for the 10,000m not knowing that their spontaneous post-race display of fair play and celebration would have an impact on Africa and the world.

World Athletics Heritage Plaques honouring the Netherlands’ Fanny Blankers-Koen and the Continental Tour Gold meeting which bears her name, and Austria’s combined events mecca, the Hypo-Meeting, were unveiled during the past fortnight, respectively in Hengelo and Götzis.

World Athletics is deeply saddened to hear that Rick Mitchell, Australia’s highest-achieving male athlete at 400m, has died, aged 66.

In the latest in our Tokyo countdown series we focus on another memorable global athletics event staged in Japan as we fix our gaze on the 1999 World Athletics Indoor Championships in Maebashi.

Czech javelin legend Jan Zelezny launched his implement out to 98.48m in the German city of Jena 25 years ago.

World Athletics is deeply saddened to hear that Britain’s Ron Hill, the 1969 European marathon champion, died on Sunday (23) at the age of 82.

World Athletics is deeply saddened to hear that 1968 Olympic 400m champion Lee Evans – a leading human rights activist and world record-breaker – died on Wednesday (19) at the age of 74.

We continue the countdown to the Tokyo Olympics by revisiting some of the past major athletics events held in The Land of the Rising Sun.

Marking a historic anniversary, Germany’s Karl-Hans Riehm has become the latest world record-breaker to make a generous donation of competition kit to the World Athletics Heritage Collection.

Breaking the four-minute mile was the classic athletics landmark until Roger Bannister did it on a windy Oxford track in May 1954. A lesser-known target was 1:30:00 for women in the 20km race walk.

In the countdown to the Tokyo Olympics, we look back at the major global athletics events that have been staged in The Land of the Rising Sun.

The Wanda Diamond League will be reopening a treasure trove of world class athletics heritage when the 2021 season gets underway with Mondo Duplantis, Dina Asher-Smith and co in action at the Muller Grand Prix Gateshead in two weeks today, Sunday 23 May.