The 2029 World Athletics Championships will be held in Africa for the first time as London was snubbed in favour of a bid from Nairobi, Kenya.
The decision was confirmed at a World Athletics council meeting in Budapest, Hungary. Lord Seb Coe, World Athletics president, said of Kenya’s winning bid: “We were fortunate to have four outstanding bids for 2029 and 2031, and this was not an easy decision for the council.
“With this decision today, we continue to fulfil our mission of growing athletics worldwide with the hosting of our World Athletics Championships in Asia, Africa and Europe over its next three editions. Nairobi presented a compelling and emotional bid, and taking the World Athletics Championships to Africa for the first time will be historic.
“It was important that the World Athletics Championships should come to Africa when we had the right host, the right bid and the right circumstances. Nairobi has demonstrated emphatically that this is their moment.”
The snub is a bitter blow for UK Athletics who had selected The London Stadium, home of West Ham United, as their proposed venue for the event.
The biennial event was last staged in the UK in 2017, in London. Jack Buckner, CEO of UK Athletics and co-founder of Athletic Ventures, said: “We are deeply disappointed that the 2029 World Athletics Championships will not be held in London. We believed we had an outstanding bid which would genuinely take the sport to new levels.
“We would like to thank the Government, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the Mayor of London and UK Sport for their fantastic support for our bid. Our thanks also to the London Stadium, West Ham United and our many stakeholders for their commitment and hard work to put the bid together. Our congratulations go to Nairobi and we wish the organising committee all the best for a great event in 2029.”
