Bednarek Did the Sprint Double, Dos Santos Ran 45.98, and the First Ultimate Championship Ended With a US Sweep

World Athletics invented a new championship this year with a simple pitch: the best athletes in each event, no qualifying rounds, three evenings, and a prize fund instead of a place in history. The first edition finished on Sunday night at the National Athletics Centre in Budapest, and whatever else it proved, it proved that if you put the eight fastest people in the world on a start line with nothing to run but a final, you get finals.

The sprints

Kenny Bednarek came to Budapest as the man who is always third and left with two golds. He won the 100 metres in 9.85 seconds over Oblique Seville, the Jamaican who had beaten him all summer, and on Sunday added the 200 in 19.52. Melissa Jefferson-Wooden did the same double on the women's side, 10.62 in the 100 and then, in the last race of the meet, 21.47 in the 200, the fastest time in the world this year, ahead of Gabby Thomas in 21.77 and Kayla White in 21.93 for an American sweep. She said afterwards that she had shocked herself. Ja'Kobe Tharp won the 110 hurdles in 12.94 by the width of a vest over Cordell Tinch, and Masai Russell the women's in 12.22, according to the NBC Sports results service; FloTrack has the full day-by-day recap.

The one-lap races

Alison dos Santos's 45.98 in the 400 hurdles was the performance of the meet: the Brazilian beat Rai Benjamin, who ran a season's best 46.40, and Karsten Warholm, third in 46.78, in a race that had all three of the men who have ever run under 46 seconds in it. Collen Kebinatshipi of Botswana won the flat 400 in 43.39. Marileidy Paulino took the women's 400 in 49.07 and Jasmine Jones the hurdles in 52.45. The United States won both mixed relays, the 4x100 in 39.64 and the 4x400 in 3:08.32.

Middle distance and field

Josh Kerr won the men's 1500 in 3:29.35 in a field that contained everyone who matters, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who had skipped the 1500, won the 5000 in 12:59.24. Djamel Sedjati took the 800 in 1:41.91. On the women's side Audrey Werro of Switzerland won the 800 in 1:55.88, Klaudia Kazimierska of Poland the 1500 in 3:57.55 by inches from Georgia Hunter Bell and Nikki Hiltz, and Likina Amebaw of Ethiopia the 5000 in 14:30.36. Mondo Duplantis cleared 6.20 in the pole vault, Sandi Morris 4.90, Yaroslava Mahuchikh 1.99 in the high jump and Gianmarco Tamberi 2.37, Miltiadis Tentoglou 8.35 in the long jump and Larissa Iapichino 6.90, Sally Sarr of Senegal 15.06 in the triple jump. Rumesh Pathirage of Sri Lanka threw the javelin 91.09 metres, Haruka Kitaguchi 69.92, and Merlin Hummel of Germany won the hammer with 81.46.

What the format proved

Two things, one for and one against. For: the racing was better than at most world championships, because nobody was saving anything for a semi-final and because the fields were the fields. The 400 hurdles, the men's 1500 and the women's 200 were the three best races of the year, and they happened on consecutive evenings. Against: a championship with no history has no stakes beyond the money, and it showed in the stands, which were not full, and in the absence of the Jamaican and Kenyan depth that makes a world championship feel global. World Athletics will count the television numbers and decide whether the second edition happens. Our view is that it should, and that the thing to fix is not the format but the calendar: three nights of finals in September, after the Diamond League final and before the road season, is the right idea in the wrong month. For the Gulf, which hosted the world championships in Doha in 2019 to half-empty stands, the lesson of Budapest is the same one: the athletes will produce if the fields are right. The audience is the harder problem.