As Jon Ridgeon, the World Athletics chief executive, told insidethegames last week, one of the key factors in the awarding of these Championships was the hope that they would be "a catalyst to grow athletics in the United States."

It remains to be seen to what extent that ambition will be realised, and how much of a boost NBC Sports - who have a media rights agreement with World Athletics involving coverage of the latter’s events through to 2029 and taking in five outdoor World Championships in total - will give to the sport through its coverage.

Anecdotally there have been reports this week of a dearth of promotional activity in the United States for the impending event.

While the figures will be what they are, and the analysis will take place when they are available, what is not in dispute is the welter of compelling events in prospect.

An estimated 1900 athletes from 192 teams will be involved in the Championships, which will conclude on Sunday, July 24.

World Athletics, supported by TDK, will once again run its world record programme, offering $100,000 (£84,600/€99,760) for every world record set.

American 400 metres hurdler Dalilah Muhammad and the United States mixed 4x400m team earned the bonuses for their performances at the last World Championships in Doha three years ago.

In terms of sheer competitive depth, the men’s and women’s 200m in Eugene promise to be outstanding.

The men's event will feature two home sprinters of dizzying talent in Noah Lyles, the defending champion, and 18-year-old Erriyon Knighton, who on April 30 at Baton Rouge clocked a time of 19.49sec that heads this year’s world list and puts him fourth on the all-time list behind world record holder Usain Bolt on 19.19, Yohan Blake on 19.26 and compatriot Michael Johnson on the former world record mark of 19.32.

Lyles, 24, is fifth on that all-time list with a 2019 clocking of 19.50 and, after being disappointed only to earn Olympic bronze last summer, clocked 19.61 at last month’s New York Grand Prix.

More importantly he beat Knighton, who missed an Olympic 200m medal by one place, at the US world trials, overhauling his young rival over the final 20 metres and crossing the line with his finger pointing across at him.

The gesture, Lyles explained afterwards, was not meant as a sign of disrespect for Knighton, but to those who doubted he could beat the prodigious young newcomer.

But in the track interviews conducted immediately after the race it was clear that the prodigious young newcomer was not buying the chat from the ebullient victor and he exited abruptly vowing to win when it came to the worlds…

These are the elements that make any sporting contest compelling.

However, this rivalry is compounded by the presence of other huge talents in the event, not least the Tokyo 2020 100m silver medallist Fred Kerley, also a man on a mission as he seeks to earn revenge over the surprise winner in Japan, Marcel Jacobs.

While Kerley has run 9.76 this season, moving to joint sixth on the all-time list, the Italian has raced very little, reportedly troubled with muscle injuries, so remains to some extent an enigma, but his championship record could hardly be better given he followed last summer’s Tokyo win by earning the world indoor title in March, beating another of his main rivals in Christian Coleman, who will be defending his title in Eugene.

While the 100m may be at the centre of Kerley’s concerns, he is seeking a double and stands fourth in this season’s list with a personal best of 19.80.

Also in the 200m mix will be another top class American, Tokyo 2020 silver medallist Kenny Bednarek, although it looks increasingly unlikely that Canada’s Olympic champion, Andre De Grasse, will run the longer sprint following his struggle to recover from the COVID-19 infection that caused him to miss the national trials.

The women's 200m will also provide a compelling spectacle for both the home and world audience, with Abby Steiner of the United States and Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson emerging as strong contenders in an event that also involves the two more established Jamaican exponents Elaine Thompson-Herah, gold medallist at the last two Olympics, and former world champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, as well as Britain’s defending champion Dina Asher-Smith.

The 22-year-old American, who lowered her own 2022 world-leading time from 21.80 to 21.77 at the trials, has never raced outside the United States and has not faced Jackson, who, on the same day ran 21.55 at her own trials, taking 0.26sec off her best and moving to third on the all-time list behind the late Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 21.34 from 1988 and the 21.53 clocked by her compatriot Thompson-Herah at last summer’s Olympics.

Jackson already has two world bronze medals, from 2015 and 2019, both of which were earned over 400m, and she won 100m bronze at Tokyo 2020.

Thompson-Herah has been running well this season but has identified "issues" which have prevented her reaching her peak form.

The 35-year-old evergreen, Fraser-Pryce, world 200m champion in 2013, ran a season’s best of 22.05 at the national trials and will also be seeking a record fifth world title over 100m.

Asher-Smith, whose Olympic ambitions were undermined by a hamstring injury, has returned to full fitness this year and while her season’s best of 22.27 means she is only just inside the top 20 this season, she is a formidable championship athlete, as she showed in winning the European 100 and 200m titles in 2018.

Olympic silver medallist Christine Mboma of Namibia, who clocked 21.87 in late April, is out with an injury.

Jackson also won the 100m at the Jamaican trials, clocking 10.77, a time only surpassed this year by Fraser-Pryce, who ran 10.67 in the rarified air of Nairobi on May 7.

The three Jamaican sprint wonders look in position to sweep the women’s 100m medals, especially since the failure of home athlete Sha’Carri Richardson, sixth on the all-time list with last season’s 10.72 timing, to qualify from the trials.

The men’s and women’s 400m hurdles in Tokyo produced the finest races ever seen and a year on the events still promise huge drama.

The major difference is in the men’s event, where the Norwegian who reduced his world record to 45.94sec in winning the Olympic title, Karsten Warholm, has entered despite having cleared precisely one hurdle in competition this year - he pulled up with a minor hamstring tear in his first race at the Rabat Diamond League meeting and has been rehabilitating since then.

Meanwhile the Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Alison dos Santos of Brazil, who clocked 46.72 in that final, just 0.02 outside Warholm’s pre-existing world record, has won a series of races, beating the Olympic silver medallist Rai Benjamin of the United States, in the opening Diamond League meeting of the season in Doha, and tops this year’s list with 46.80, Benjamin being second on 47.04.

While Warholm has hit a barrier, his female counterpart has redoubled her progress - Sydney McLaughlin reduced her world record to 51.41 last month.

Also making waves this year has been the 22-year-old Dutch athlete Femke Bol, bronze medallist in Tokyo in 52.03, who has run successively faster and now stands second behind McLaughlin on 52.27.

Also to be added to the equation, the Tokyo 2020 silver medallist and defending champion Dalilah Muhammad, who has been relatively unseen since clocking 53.88 in April.

The 110m hurdles will also be a major draw, particularly for home viewers, as defending champion Grant Holloway takes on the fellow American who beat him last month in New York, Devon Allen, whose time of 12.84sec moved him to third on the all-time list.

At the end of this season Allen will take up a three-year contract as a wide receiver for the National Football League team Philadelphia Eagles, although he has insisted he will combine the two sports rather than forsaking one for the other.

Allen’s NFL link could prove a crucial factor in leveraging US airtime and marketing beyond the places athletics normally reaches there; and after missing an Olympic medal by one place last summer, he is in the ideal mood for a home flourish on the track.

The women’s 800 metres will witness a re-convening of the two spectacularly talented 20-year-olds who won Olympic gold and silver last year - respectively Athing Mu of the United States and Britain’s Keely Hodgkinson.

The men’s javelin promises to be one of the most compelling in the event’s history, featuring as it will be a host of contenders including Grenada’s defending champion Anderson Peters, whose season’s best of 93.07m put him fourth on the all-time list, the Czech Republic’s Olympic silver medallist Jakub Vadlejch and India’s Olympic champion Neeraj Chopra, who recently threw a personal best of 89.94m and could enter 90m territory in Eugene.

Ingebrigtsen is also down to contest the 5,000m - a title which he holds at European level - contributing to a stacked field that also includes the Olympic 10,000m champion Selemon Barega and defending champion Muktar Edris, from Ethiopia,

Canada’s Olympic silver medallist and world bronze medallist Moh Ahmed, Kenyan duo Nicholas Kimeli and Jacob Krop, the two fastest men in the world this year and Ethiopia’s Berihu Aregawi, the world 5km record-holder on the roads.

The men’s high jump brings together the joint Olympic champions, Gianmarco Tamberi of Italy and Mutaz Barshim of Qatar, but both will have their hands full to beat the in-form world indoor champion Sanghyeok Woo of South Korea.

Sweden’s Tokyo 2020 champion and world record holder Mondo Duplantis will seek a first world outdoor title for his CV, and in the men’s 1500m Norway’s Olympic 1500m Jakob Ingebrigtsen will seek to do the same.

Ryan Crouser, double Olympic shot put champion and world record holder, will also be seeking a first world outdoor title having missed out by a centimetre in Doha three years ago in the most thrilling such final ever witnessed.