Seb Coe optimistic Tokyo will stage a captivating World Athletics Championships in 2025

The president of World Athletics, Sebastian Coe hopes to see a capacity crowd at Tokyo's National Stadium when the world championships are held in September next year -- something Japan missed at the home Olympics.

The newly built 68,000-seat stadium had no spectators from the general public during the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021 when Japan faced one of the worst phases of the coronavirus pandemic.

"My expectations are high. I want them to be the best world championships ever," Coe said Wednesday in an interview with Kyodo News. "For me, the Holy Grail, the most important target, is to have a full stadium."

"The marketing and the promotion around ticket sales are very important. We use the Paris Games platform to have some presales, and those presales went well, but we need to make sure that we keep our foot on the accelerator right the way through (and) that the marketing has to be ambitious and thoughtful and creative."

Tokyo is scheduled to host the world athletics championships from September 13 to 21, instead of the traditional month of August, amid lingering concerns about the extreme heat.

The 2019 meet in Doha, held between September 27 and October 6, has been the only championship staged later toward the end of the year.

"We have delayed the start of these championships by a few weeks," Coe said. "The challenge we all have now is climate change. These will still be warm championships. But at this moment, we see no reason to alter the start times."

"We've had 15 consecutive months of world record temperatures, both on land and in the oceans. This is the world we live in. We should have tackled some of these issues many, many years earlier."

At the Paris Games, athletics became the first sport to offer prize money to Olympic champions.

The move was welcomed by athletes while being opposed by the governing bodies of some other sports, who argued it goes against the Olympic spirit and solidarity.

World Athletics decided that each Olympic gold medalist would receive $50,000 for their achievements in Paris and plans to extend its prize money to silver and bronze medalists at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

"We made the right decision because we felt it was in the best interests of our athletes," Coe said. "We recognize that not every international federation is in a position to do that, and some may choose not to do it. So it was a judgment that my council made."

"I've always been committed to, where possible, creating a little bit more financial security for the athletes. That financial security often gives them a reason to remain in the sport. We have to recognize times have changed. We did it for our sport. We didn't do it to make a point to other sports."

Asked to comment on the recent decisions by three major Japanese firms to discontinue their top-tier sponsorship deals with the International Olympic Committee, Coe said, "That has an impact not just on the Olympic movement or the IOC."

"It has an impact on the landscape of sport because there are interdependencies here. So this is worthy of more than just reflection."