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Records are the name of the game as Budapest hosts world's best athletes this week

Over 2,000 track stars including several current world record holders from over 200 countries will be action across all disciplines at the biggest international sports event this side of the Olympics

A country spends millions, sometimes billions, to deliver a major international sports event to the world.

That money buys a chance to project strength at home and abroad and, if the event goes well, maybe even glosses over that country's oft-dissected shortcomings.

It's a pattern that has played out in China, Russia, Qatar and other countries in the recent past.

This month in Budapest, the spotlight will shine on Hungary, as it makes its' latest step onto the international stage starts Saturday, the opening of the nine-day track and field world championships.

At a cost of nearly $700 million, the sparkling National Athletics Center, on the left bank of the Danube River, will host more than 2,000 athletes from over 200 countries in the biggest international sports event this side of the Olympics.

American Noah Lyles has his sights on three world titles, among them Usain Bolt's long-standing 200m record.

The world champion took to social media to boast that he will run 19.10 seconds to shatter the Jamaican sprinting legend's 14-year mark. He also believes that he will get within 0.07secs of Bolt's 100m sprint mark of 9.65.

Eight-time Olympic champion Bolt's time of 19.19 has stood its ground since the 2009 World Championships, while his 100m mark of 9.58 is yet to be eclipsed.

Among other stars in focus are the in-form Faith Kipyegon who has set three world records across as many distances in fewer than 50 days.

The Kenyan broke the 1500m mark in a time of three minutes 49.11 seconds at the Florence Diamond League before winning the 5,000m in Paris in 14 minutes 5.20 seconds on 9th June.

Some see the Budapest meet as a natural move by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to establish the country's image on the world stage, much as other leaders have done in recent years by hosting World Cups, Olympics and other major championships in various sports.

After hosting world championships in 2017 and 2022 in a purpose-built aquatics arena on the Danube costing more than $165 million, World Aquatics announced that it plans to move its headquarters to Budapest. The city will host the event again in 2027.

For soccer, the government-financed Puskas Arena, then the costliest stadium ever built in Hungary, opened in Budapest in 2019 at a price tag of around $600 million. It hosted four soccer matches during the European Championship in 2021.

Orbán is well-known as a soccer fanatic, and a former player himself. He has often used the sport as his preferred venue for pushing his political vision and amplifying his image as a man of the people. The government also directly funds the sport, paying for several of the 32 stadiums that have been built or renovated in Hungary since Orbán assumed power in 2010.

The biggest prize in international sports hosting is, of course, the Olympics. Hungary was briefly in the running to stage the 2024 Games, but withdrew in 2017 in the face of public opposition.

Yet a government state secretary recently told sports website Inside the Games that Budapest was “even more capable” of hosting the Olympics now than in 2017, and that the Hungarian Olympic Committee could bid to host in 2036.

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According to Kele, the recent focus on outfitting Budapest with numerous high-profile sports developments is part of a government plan to prepare the city to host the Olympics after the “painful failure” of withdrawing its 2024 bid.

“(The stadiums) planned to be built for the Olympics are what have been completed since then," Kele said. “What is really happening is that Fidesz is realizing its Olympic dream, only not in the form of an Olympic bid, but in parts, piece by piece.”