• New July event in London hopes to give fans new stars • Adam Gemili: ‘We need new heroes and new people to get behind’

For the past decade Usain Bolt has almost single-handedly carried casual fans’ interest in athletics on his 6ft 4in frame, with Mo Farah providing much of the auxiliary work in Britain. But when the track and field season kicks off in Doha on Friday two of its most bankable names will no longer be doing the heavy lifting.

Bolt has retired. Farah has quit the track and many in the sport are unsure what the future holds. The lack of a world championships or Olympics this year only makes them more fearful that the sport may drift further from the mainstream.

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As Adam Gemili, a member of Britain’s gold-medal winning 4x100m relay team at the 2017 world championships, conceded: “We need new heroes and new people to get behind, especially in Britain. Bolt is Bolt and will we ever see another athlete like him? Probably not. And Mo has left a massive gap too.”

Yet Gemili, one of the more eloquent athletes, is nevertheless optimistic. “There’s a lot of talented athletes in Britain,” he said. “Katarina Johnson-Thompson can smash it when in form. Andrew Pozzi has been under the radar because of injuries but now people are seeing his worth. And Holly Bradshaw and Laura Muir are hugely talented too. One of the problems is the sport is not on TV regularly enough to be in the public eye. But when it is on, people get behind it.”

This year UK Athletics is pinning its hopes on a new two-day competition, the Athletics World Cup, in which eight leading nations – including Britain, the US and Jamaica – will compete for a $2m (£1.47m) prize fund under floodlights at the Queen Elizabeth Stadium in London.

Some think the event is a gamble, given it takes place on the same weekend as the World Cup final and the Wimbledon singles finals – and half the adult tickets will cost £100 or more (although the cheapest tickets are £38 and children’s tickets are £10).

Richard Bowker, the new chair of UK Athletics, views it as an exciting opportunity. “Other sports have got World Cups that have been incredibly successful and this will be the same,” he said.

“The format is a bit different, straight finals, one competitor from each country in each race, and with each point counting to a final tally.”

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Bowker is also confident the biggest names, including the world 60m champion Christian Coleman, will turn up and insists the World Cup will be the third pillar in a brilliant midsummer weekend of sport.

“I rather like to think the guys at Fifa are sat there thinking: ‘Oh my goodness, we are the same day as the Athletics World Cup,’” he said, jokingly. “I think we will get World Cup fever, actually. I really do. The Fifa final and Wimbledon finals are in the afternoon, while we’re on at 7pm. They segue into each other. I think it will be an extraordinary weekend of sport.”

Not everyone is as optimistic about the state of British athletics, given the lack of big sponsorship deals in recent years and the disappointing performance of some of the country’s athletes at last month’s Commonwealth Games.

Bowker accepts the next generation will have to step up but is confident they can do so. “I spoke to Neil Black, our performance director, and he actually came back very positive from the Commonwealth Games,” he said.

“There were some really good performances. Callum Hawkins is an absolutely phenomenal talent. Kyle Langford is great. Our sprinters are looking fantastic. And Johnson-Thompson got another gold medal.”

He is just as optimistic about the sport’s future, despite Bolt’s retirement. “Athletics is cyclical. It moves on, it changes, it grows,” he said. “Usain was a one in a lifetime athlete and he did a huge amount for the sport. But this is a new era and there will be new stars.”