2006 in the sport of athletics
In 2006 the World Athletics Tour consisted of six IAAF Golden League meets (Oslo, Paris, Rome, Zürich, Brussels, Berlin), six Super Grand Prix meets (Doha, Athens, Lausanne, Stockholm, London (Crystal Palace), Monaco), twelve Grand Prix meets (Melbourne, Dakar, Osaka, Belém, Eugene, Hengelo, Ostrava, Gateshead, Madrid, Helsinki, Rieti, Zagreb) as well as 26 Area Permit Meetings all over the world.The World Athletics Final was held in Stuttgart, having been staged in Monaco the three previous years.Similarly to the World Athletics Tour, the participating athletes accumulate points in designated meets, however in this case the final ranking is decided by the points table and not a conclusive meet.At the same time Liu Xiang and Meseret Defar were recognized with the Performance of the Year awards for men and women, for their new world records (see above).Hicham El Guerrouj, Stefka Kostadinova and Jan Železný were presented Distinguished Career Awards.