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After a successful World Under 20 Athletics Championships, Athletics Kenya is interested in bidding on the World Athletics Championships, according to Athletics Kenya President Jack Tuwei.
The home of heroes really lived up to its name for these #WorldAthleticsU20 Championships.
— World Athletics (@WorldAthletics) August 22, 2021
Asante sana Nairobi – tuonane tena🙏🇰🇪 pic.twitter.com/MOAAQGzh2T
He said, ”In 2007, we hosted the World Cross Country Championships in Mombasa, 10 years later we successfully hosted the World Under 18 and now World under 20. The question is what next? We are definitely going to bid for the World championships in either 2025 or 2027.”
“World Athletics has called for countries interested in hosting the 2025 and 2027 championships to bid. We have started the bidding process already. Kenya is ripe to host the global event.”
“The last World U20 Championships (in Tampere in 2018) featured names like Armand Duplantis, Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Peruth Chemutai among others, all Olympic champions just three years later. So it’s reasonable to think we’ve seen some of the Paris 2024 champions-to-be in Nairobi.”
The Championships have been broadcast in more than 70 countries. Every other country has had access to a live stream through the World Athletics YouTube channel.
The event takes place every other year. World Athletics (IAAF) first launched the meet in 1986 in Athens, Greece. The first year saw 142 nations participate with 1135 athletes. The largest participation year was 2014 when Beijing hosted 176 countries and 1350 athletes and when Eugene hosted with one less country at 175, but 1546 athletes. Barcelona had 171 countries, but 1566 athletes competing in 2012. For Kenya, during the pandemic, they still had 116 countries and 958 athletes.
The next championships will take place in Cali, Colombia in 2022, as 2020 was delayed one year, the meet goes two years in a row.
The 2016 event suffered a little due to the relocation of the event from suspended Russia in Kazan to Bydgoszcz, Poland.
