BEIJING — For a sport in crisis, the world track and field championships that ended in Beijing on Sunday provided some unexpected relief.
That relief may prove as temporary as last week’s blue skies over Beijing — a result of restrictions on commuting and industry that were put in place by the Chinese authorities in advance of the coming major military parade.
But track and field and its leadership will take fair weather wherever they can find it in these days of doping doom, and with the ever-longer shadow cast by soccer, the planet’s No. 1 sport.