More than a million people apply for London 2017 tickets

Jamaica's Usain Bolt (R) celebrates with Britain's Mo Farah on the podium after each receiving gold medals, Bolt for men's 4x100m relay and Farah for men's 5000m, at the victory ceremony at the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in Britain August 11, 2012. REUTERS/Eddie Keogh

More than a million people have applied for tickets for next year's world athletics championships in London where greats Usain Bolt and Mo Farah will compete for the final time on the track.

Jamaican Bolt, who completed a triple-triple of 100, 200 and 4x100 meters relay at last month's Olympics, and Briton Farah, who retained the 5,000 and 10,000 titles in Rio, have both said next year's championships will be their last.

Bolt plans to hang up his spikes after the event while Farah intends to switch his focus from the track to the marathon.

Unlike in Rio, where empty seats were a depressing feature of the recent Games, demand for tickets for London 2017 has been fierce, with applications vastly outnumbering the 700,000 available places.

Organizers said 1,047,000 tickets have been applied for with applications flooding in from 92 countries.

Bolt's swan-song in the 100m final has attracted more than 200,000 ticket applications with the stadium capacity around 50,000 per session.

(Reporting by Toby Davis; editing by Ed Osmond)