2011 World Championships in Athletics

When the seeking deadline passed on 1 December 2006, four candidate cities (Brisbane, Daegu, Moscow and Gothenburg) had confirmed their candidatures.[3] Gothenburg backed out later that month, citing lack of financial support from the Swedish government.[4]

Brisbane was announced as the Australian candidate with the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre (formerly ANZ Stadium) as the proposed venue for a championships to be held in July or August. The stadium previously hosted the 1982 Commonwealth Games and 2001 Goodwill Games. Brisbane also had an unsuccessful bid for the 2009 World Championships in Athletics.

Daegu was the city chosen for the Korean bid, following on from an initial application to host the 2009 edition. Daegu had previously hosted the 2003 Summer Universiade and three matches of the 2002 FIFA World Cup. The World Championships in Athletics had never been staged in mainland Asia, although it has taken place twice in Japan.

The Russian bid had Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium as the proposed venue. The city hosted the 1980 Summer Olympics and the 2006 IAAF World Indoor Championships.

Among the intent candidates were Casablanca (Morocco) and Split (Croatia), both of which were failed bidders for the 2009 World Championships in Athletics. The Spanish candidate was rumored to be either Madrid or Valencia,[2] but Spain eventually settled for Barcelona as a candidate for the 2013 World Championships in Athletics.[3] The United States intent candidate city matched those bidding for the 2016 Summer Olympics: Chicago, Los Angeles or San Francisco.[5]

The IAAF announced Daegu as the winning candidate at the IAAF Council Meeting in Mombasa on 27 March 2007.[6] Its victory was based on "the quality of the stadiums and [meeting] the need for good crowds."[7] IAAF's officials also praised Daegu's "ambition and challenging spirit" as key to its winning bid.[8] Both Moscow and Brisbane later confirmed their candidacy to host the 2013 World Championships in Athletics – a selection process won by the Russian capital.[3]

The events in the men's section ended with a world record in 4 x 100 metres relay set by Jamaica and several world's leading results. Jamaica dominated the sprinting events, while Kenya and Ethiopia dominated the longer track events. In the field events, the United States and Germany were most successful, winning four and three gold medals respectively. Yohan Blake and Usain Bolt, both from Jamaica, won two gold medals, being the most successful athletes in the men's events.

In the 100 m final the largely favored Usain Bolt was disqualified for a false start, enabling Yohan Blake to win the crown with a time of 9.92 s. In the 200 m Bolt won with a time of 19.40 s, which was the fastest time ever not to be a world record at that point. Blake and Bolt, along with countrymen Nesta Carter and Michael Frater, ran in the 4 x 100 metres relay, setting a new world record with a time of 37.04 s. In the 10,000 metres event, World Champion Kenenisa Bekele did not finish the race. The world record holder in 800 m, David Rudisha, won the event with his first gold medal at the World Championships. On the last day, Kenyan Abel Kirui became the third marathon winner to retain the title at the next World Championships, after Abel Anton and Jaouad Gharib.

Most of the field events ended with new winners, but Dwight Phillips retained the long jump title, becoming only the second man after Ivan Pedroso to win four golds at the World Championships in this event.

Ethiopia's Imane Merga was originally awarded the bronze medal in the Men's 5000 metres, but he was later disqualified for having run inside the curb of the running track for some 10 to 15 metres. His teammate Dejen Gebremeskel was elevated to the bronze medal as a result.[10]

Cuba's Dayron Robles finished first in the race of the Men's 110 metres hurdles, but was disqualified for interfering with Liu Xiang twice before and over the last barrier. Jason Richardson was awarded the Gold, Liu the Silver, and Andy Turner promoted to the Bronze medal position.

During the championships, Russia was the most successful country in the women's events, winning seven gold medals, followed by the United States with six. Most successful female athlete was Allyson Felix having won two relay golds and silver and bronze in her individual events. On the first day of the Championships, the athletes of Kenya made an astonishing performance, winning all six medals available in the two events. Kenya also dominated the long-distance events, while Jamaica and the United States the sprinting. In the field events, Russia was initially dominant, winning four gold medals.

Following a series of retests of stored samples and biological passports, a number of athletes were stripped of medals because of doping. Nine medals in eight events were forfeited for doping, eight of them from Russia, including five gold medals. The only Russian medals that survived the post-championship doping purge were two gold medals in the high jump and the hammer throw, and a bronze medals in the pole vault and the 400 metre hurdles. Of the four surviving medalists, a further three were eventually banned for doping.

The amended results left United State the clear leading nation in women's athletics.

Event	Gold		Silver		Bronze
High jump	Anna Chicherova  Russia (RUS)	2.03	Blanka Vlašić  Croatia (CRO)	2.03 SB	Antonietta Di Martino  Italy (ITA)	2.00
Pole vault	Fabiana Murer  Brazil (BRA)	4.85 AR	Martina Strutz  Germany (GER)	4.80 NR	Svetlana Feofanova  Russia (RUS)	4.75 SB
Long jump	Brittney Reese  United States (USA)	6.82	Ineta Radēviča  Latvia (LAT)	6.76	Nastassia Mironchyk-Ivanova  Belarus (BLR)	6.74
			Olga Kucherenko  Russia (RUS)	6.77
Triple jump	Olha Saladukha  Ukraine (UKR)	14.94	Olga Rypakova  Kazakhstan (KAZ)	14.89	Caterine Ibargüen  Colombia (COL)	14.84
Shot put	Valerie Adams  New Zealand (NZL)	21.24 CR, AR	Jillian Camarena-Williams  United States (USA)	20.02	Gong Lijiao  China (CHN)	19.97
			Nadzeya Ostapchuk  Belarus (BLR)	20.05
Discus throw	Li Yanfeng  China (CHN)	66.52	Nadine Müller  Germany (GER)	65.97	Yarelis Barrios  Cuba (CUB)	65.73 SB
Javelin throw [a]	Barbora Špotáková  Czech Republic (CZE)	71.58 SB	Sunette Viljoen  South Africa (RSA)	68.38 AR	Christina Obergföll  Germany (GER)	65.24
	Mariya Abakumova  Russia (RUS)	71.99 CR, NR, WL
Hammer throw	Tatyana Lysenko  Russia (RUS)	77.13 SB	Betty Heidler  Germany (GER)	76.06	Zhang Wenxiu  China (CHN)	75.03
Heptathlon [b][13]	Jessica Ennis  Great Britain & N.I. (GBR)	6751	Jennifer Oeser  Germany (GER)	6572	Karolina Tymińska  Poland (POL)	6544
	Tatyana Chernova  Russia (RUS)	6880 WL
WR world record | AR area record | CR championship record | GR games record | NR national record | OR Olympic record | PB personal best | SB season best | WL world leading (in a given season)

^Javelin Original gold medalist Mariya Abakumova of Russia was stripped of her gold medal.
^Heptathlon Original gold medalist Tatyana Chernova of Russia was stripped of her gold medal on 29 November 2016 by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, with Ennis and Oeser promoted to gold and silver respectively and the bronze awarded to Karolina Tymińska of Poland.[13]

• 
  Valerie Adams broke the championship record in the shot put.
• 
  Mariya Abakumova improved the championship and Russian record in javelin.
• 
  Tatyana Chernova defeated the defending heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis, but was disqualified in 2016 for doping offences.