Kenya planning new bid to host World Athletics Championships

ATHLETICS Kenya planning new bid to host World Athletics Championships

Abigael Wafula 12:27 - 24.05.2023

AK will be hopeful of hosting the 2027 edition of the event before the retirement of Coe.

Athletics Kenya (AK) Nairobi Region chair Barnaba Korir has revealed that the World Athletics president Sebastian Coe expressed interest in seeing a country in Africa hosting the World Championships going forward.

AK had submitted a bid to host the 2025 World Championships but unfortunately lost the bid to Tokyo, Japan due to lack of a few resources but Korir revealed that plans are underway to work on the same.

AK will be hopeful of hosting the 2027 edition of the event before the retirement of Coe.

“World Athletics has given us the opportunity to think along certain lines that they want us to follow. Initially, we had made a bid to host the 2025 World Championships but unfortunately, we missed certain conditions…we have met almost 99%.

"They promised that if we meet that condition, then we might be granted the opportunity to host the event before the exit of the president of World Athletics.

"He had indicated that he would love to see the World Championships being held in Africa, particularly in Kenya,” Korir told KBC Sport.

AK has also placed a request to World Athletics to host a Diamond League Meeting. This comes after hosting four successful editions of the Kip Keino Classic, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold Series.

Kenya has also proven that it has the capability to host international events after staging the World Under-20 championships in 2021 which was a great success.

If the bid goes through, Kenya will be the second African country, after Rabat, Morocco to host the global event.

“Hosting such international events brings revenue to our country and enhances the standards of the country in regard to sport. We believe that the government will support us as we hope to make such great steps,” he said.

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