Unable to survive financially if they ditched a round of world championships, the major Olympic sports are faced with fitting two years of major events into one.

Not that the pandemic is still without influence - perhaps in this instance in a helpful manner.

China - scheduled to host a swag of big international sporting competitions after the special exception made for February's Winter Olympics and Paralympics - is still locked up and staging virtually nothing.

This includes postponing for the second time the World University Games - a multi-sport competition featuring a fair proportion of the globe's emerging talent. Its removal from the 2022 calendar has been a probable blessing for many reasons - not least for those athletes who would have had to make a choice about where to focus their attention or opt to triple or quadruple peak.

But there is still plenty to fit in.

Swimming has just staged its world championships in Budapest having originally been slotted in for Fukuoka, Japan, last year but by necessity punted to make way for the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

The Hungary solution was quickly found to avoid an absence of world championships in the swimming calendar for a full four years.

For Australians, with over a month's gap until the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham which still occupies its original spot in the four-year calendar, it has meant making a decision to try to do both and maintain form over a longish period or, as Ariarne Titmus has done, choosing just one to obtain the best outcome.

In athletics the quandary, while still challenging, is a little different.

The year-on date for its world championships in Eugene, Oregon beginning in two weeks on July 15 runs directly into the Commonwealths - the traditional positioning of athletics in the second half of those Games, making it possible for the doubling athletes to relocate from the west coast of the USA to Britain with the added challenge of eight hours in time zone changes.

Of course, the Australians will not be alone - with the same test facing every Commonwealth country's athletics team including the home nations of the United Kingdom on whom there will be great expectation to succeed.

The conundrum facing world sport has been too great for some events with the World Para Athletics Championships set for Kobe in Japan in August among others cancelled altogether. Originally scheduled for 2021 as a follow-up to and legacy from the Tokyo Paralympics, it's now a casualty of the Games being delayed by a year.

The next edition will now be in Paris as a lead-up to the 2024 Paralympics in the traditionally planned year of 2023.

The Commonwealth Games integrated athletics program will ensure that not all of Australia's para elite track and field athletes will miss out in 2022 with 16 of them fortunate to have their events on the limited Birmingham program of disciplines.

Athletics is one of the few remaining sports where World Para Athletics stages its own stand-alone championships so there will be no opportunities for para-athletes in Eugene.

Eugene will be an interesting affair. While World Athletics has Asics as its clothing and footwear partner, this year's host has indelible connections with Nike - its global headquarters being located in nearby Beaverton.

The stadium at Hayward Field is legendary in US sport - particularly in collegiate athletics and football. Its unique layout required some considerable adaptation to host the worlds, but this has not been the only challenge - with Eugene's size (a population of just 170,000) an issue in delivering sufficient accommodation for those wanting to attend from both near and far.

Surprisingly, there will be some significant difference between the compositions of the Australian teams in Eugene and Birmingham despite them being roughly the same size.

Qualification for Eugene is based on achieving set entry marks for each event or being sufficiently highly placed on world rankings while for Birmingham there was greater discretion in selection. Around 25 athletes will appear at only one of the two majors.