Garth Gayle, the president of the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) said that Jamaica is open to hosting the under-20 World Athletics Championships.
The 2024 event was scheduled to take place in Lima, Peru, however, due to political instability, protests turned violent, as well as natural disasters, Lima withdrew their winning bid.
Lima not in position to host 2024 U20 World Athletics Championships https://t.co/vb1buTF50t via @https://twitter.com/AthIllustrated
— AthleticsIllustratedMagazine (@AthIllustrated) April 6, 2023
Gayle was quick to suggest Jamaica could host, however, will require strong financial support. “Jamaica is always ready to host track and field events,” he said during an interview with Nationwide Radio. “We would have proven that we can do it when we took on the 49th staging of the Carifta Games last year, but it was at a cost. Now, this is a higher level of competition.”
Gayle suggested that hosting more than 200 federations would be a challenge, but one that Jamaica is capable of meeting. “The timeline is very, very short but not impossible,” he added.
Jamaica hosted the event in 2002.
The biennial event was first hosted in 1986 in Athens, Greece. The championships ran every other year until 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic was declared. It returned in 2021 to Nairobi, Kenya and the following year to Cali, Colombia. The top three medal earning countries are the United States with a total of 263 medals, 115 gold, 84 silver and 64 bronze. Kenya is second all-time with 89G 70S 53B and 212 total. Ethiopia is third: 46G 51S 32B for a total of 129.