BUDAPEST, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The world's leading athletes are set for a three-day showdown in Budapest as the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship opens Friday, bringing together Olympic champions, world champions and Diamond League winners in a new season-ending global event.
A total of 381 athletes from 65 countries and regions will compete across three evening sessions from September 11 to 13 at the National Athletics Center, with 28 titles on offer across 16 track events, 10 field events and two relays.
The championship carries a 10 million U.S. dollars prize purse, with 150,000 dollars awarded to each individual event winner.
At Thursday's pre-event activities, athletes swapped competition kits for suits, evening gowns, sunglasses and high heels as they walked onto the track, showcasing a different side of themselves before the competition begins.
The Ultimate Championship also introduces a compressed competition format. Most individual track events from 100m to 800m begin with semifinals, while the 1,500m, 5,000m, relays and all field events go directly to finals.
Another innovation comes in the 200m semifinals, where athletes will select their preferred heat and lane in seeding order, giving higher-ranked competitors first choice.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said at Thursday's pre-event press conference that the championship was designed to bring the world's best athletes together to answer the fundamental question of "who is the best."
"Nobody goes into the sport to sort of figure out who's second best," Coe said.
Coe described the championship as an "incubator for change," saying innovations tested in Budapest could eventually find their way into future World Championships and even the Olympic Games.
Jamaican sprint great Usain Bolt said bringing the world's best athletes together for direct competition was exactly the kind of challenge he enjoyed during his career.
"I've always lived to compete against the best. I live for competition," Bolt said.
Joking that the event had arrived too late for him, Bolt said he would have regarded the Ultimate Championship as being as important as the Olympic Games or World Championships had it existed during his prime.
Friday's opening night will feature several high-profile contests, led by men's pole vault world record holder Armand Duplantis. Titles will also be decided in the women's high jump, men's hammer throw and men's 5,000m, while semifinals in the hurdles, 400m and 800m are also scheduled.
Two Chinese athletes have qualified for the championship, with both competing Saturday.
18-year-old Yan Ziyi will contest the women's javelin after an outstanding season in which she threw 71.74 meters at the Diamond League meeting in Xiamen, setting Asian and world U20 records. She remained unbeaten in five Diamond League appearances before winning the Final in Brussels last weekend.
Zhang Mingkun will compete in the men's long jump final. ■
