Artful as it may have been to maintain the same initials in 2001 when the original title of International Amateur Athletic Federation - established along with the governing body itself in 1912 - was modernised, the five-word version has been a clunking presence for too long.

World Athletics is a shorter, snappier version which does the job perfectly.

If only it were as simple to achieve the same result for the sport itself.

Christian Taylor is the kind of athlete every International Federation needs. In the course of winning two Olympic and four world titles this product of New York has displayed a level of competitiveness that has kept a series of hugely talented rivals at bay - and yet he has been a sportsman at all times.

Away from the arena, Taylor, now 29, has been unfailingly positive and pro-active, engaging with PR duties in model fashion. When it comes to promoting the sport, his is always one of the first names on the team sheet.

And yet this month he posted on Twitter to say he is "incredibly disappointed" that the world governing body has reduced the events in the Diamond League programme from next year. The final in Zurich will not include the 200 metres, the 3,000m steeplechase, the discus or the triple jump, the latter being Taylor’s event.

Such is Taylor’s talent that he could probably maintain a successful momentum in the long jump, or even the 400 metres. But that is not the point.

If, as a federation, you are distressing an athlete such as Christian Taylor, then all is not well.

This week in Monaco, in advance of the annual World Athlete of the Year Awards, Taylor is due to meet World Athletics President Sebastian Coe to discuss the new look of the sport’s top tier circuit.

He will do so as the founder of a new body, The Athletics Association, which has already signed up a large number of top performers, including numerous Olympic and world champions. The association seeks to become an effective mouthpiece for athletes, operating under the moniker of @wearethesport.

Taylor spoke from the heart in launching his new venture. "Our sport is about unity and diversity and separating the events can only damage this sport we all love," he said.

That said, he doesn’t love the sport any more than Coe, a double Olympic champion himself, or the World Athletics chief executive Jon Ridgeon, who won world silver in the 110m hurdles before injuries cut cruelly into his career.

These two are approaching the topic of the Diamond League from another angle, driven by the imperative of maintaining, or improving, its reach and effectiveness. The clear message from the TV and marketing people is that the annual showcase series needs to be, well, shorter and snappier.

Coe expressed it thus when I spoke to him last month. “The overwhelming challenge for our sport is to remain interesting and exciting in the lives of young people when they already have so many other distractions," he said.

"That’s why really understanding what the market is telling us, what spectators are saying to us, what young people are saying to us, what the broadcasters are saying to us, particularly around the Diamond League, is hugely important.

"Every one of those stakeholders we have spoken to has said we need to be slicker and the product needs to be better.”

The moot point – what is "better?" (A question the ancient Greeks worked on for a few hundred years without gaining a definitive answer…)

You have to feel for Coe and Ridgeon as they seek to mediate between the two conflicting imperatives - shrink and expand.

Athletics is not like football, where, by and large, save for the odd Leicester City-style incursion, you know which teams will be the perennial focus of interest.

Much as marketing may seek to pin it down, this sport is a devil for fluctuation. Events rise and fall, grow hot and cool. One year it’s the men’s high jump that thrills. Then pole vaulting. It’s like a box of chocolates - you never know what you are going to get…

Last year, as it turned out, triple jumping produced two of the most compelling spectacles on the calendar as Taylor struggled and eventually succeeded in bettering his old training partner and buddy Will Claye, who nevertheless topped the world lists with his effort of 18.14m.

On the women's side, Venezuela’s world champion Yulimar Rojas, who has jumped to within nine centimetres of the 1995 world record of 15.50 this season, is one of the most effervescent characters in any sport.

The 200m, which will feature largely on the circuit next year without making the final, contains two more of the sport’s hottest young talents in world champions Noah Lyles of the United States and Dina Asher-Smith of Britain.

As an exasperated Tony Soprano might put it: "Whaddaya gonna do?"

In a way the sport is suffering from the decision taken in the original formation of the Diamond League in 2010, which accommodated every event save for the hammer throw.

Its predecessor from 1998 to 2009, the IAAF Golden League, regularly featured a more limited range of events which varied from year to year. 

For instance, in 2009 the event roster was, for men, the 100, 400 and 3,000/5,000m, the 110m hurdles and javelin, while women had opportunities in the 100 and 400m, the 100m hurdles, the high jump and the pole vault.

The Diamond League has raised the general level of expectation for athletes in almost every discipline, and that is a factor with which those currently charged with running the sport are now having to deal.

Athletes, particularly those in the events most affected by the changes, have voiced a range of opinions.

Emma Coburn of the United States, who has won world gold and silver in the 3,000m steeplechase since 2017, tweeted: "I’m disappointed. Cutting events isn’t the solution for exciting TV. Don’t blame athletes/events, IAAF. We compete and put on a show. Racing is exciting and compelling. It’s on you to translate that."

Dai Greene, Britain’s 2011 world 400m hurdles champion, tweeted: "There's no such thing as a boring event, it's how you present it to the public that's the problem."

Greece’s Olympic and two-time Diamond League champion pole vaulter Katerina Stefanidi also tweeted about the need to improve the way events are televised, adding: "It is the number one complaint I hear from fans after every Diamond League and IAAF Championship. Maybe we should look into this."

Certainly the complaints regarding field events are familiar; they often appear to pepper the main action rather than being it. But once again we are talking about trying to get a quart into a pint pot.

Maybe going the other way is a better option - letting all inside the tent but diversifying the experience for viewers with a welter of red-button options, so they can effectively steer their own course through the evening’s entertainment. Chacun à son goût.

Annoyingly I worked out the perfect solution to all this only the other night and scribbled it onto a piece of paper which I now cannot for the life of me find. I’ll keep looking, of course. In the meantime, Seb, Jon, Christian - bon chance…