The IAAF World Half Marathon Championships was first held in 1992. It comprised three races: the men's race, the women's race and the junior men's race. Furthermore, a team competition was held in each category, with the winners being decided by combining the performances of a country's top three finishers. The country with the lowest aggregate time won the team competition. The junior men's race was held in only the first and second editions, and was removed from the programme from 1994 onwards. The competition went largely unchanged until 2006, when the competition was renamed as the
IAAF World Road Running Championships. Aside from the name change, the significant difference was the distance of the race, changing from a
half marathon to a
20 kilometres road race. The 20 km race featured only at the
2006 edition, and the half marathon distance returned for the
2007 World Road Running Championships. On 29 November 2007, the IAAF announced that the name of the competition would revert to its original title of the IAAF World Half Marathon Championships, beginning with the
2008 IAAF World Half Marathon Championships in
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 12 October 2008. This competition is not to be confused with the
IAAF World Women's Road Race Championships which were run from 1983 to 1991, or the
IAAF World Road Relay Championships which took place between 1992 and 1998. The 2020 edition of the competition was postponed due to the
COVID-19 pandemic. Although it was held later that year, many countries, including Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the U.S., declined to participate. Similarly, the 2022 edition of the competition was postponed twice before being cancelled due to the pandemic. As a result of the cancellation, the World Athletics Council decided to award the 2027 World Athletics Road Running Championships to Yangzhou, the city originally scheduled to host the 2022 competition. ==Competition format==