The Republic of Kenya has confirmed the country was putting up a bid to host the 2025 athletics world championships, which if accepted, would bring the event to Africa for the first time.
Nairobi has hosted both the world under-18 and under-20 world championships in the last four years, but faces a string of high-profile rivals including Tokyo, which staged the Olympic Games in July.
Confirming the development to journalists on Tuesday, Athletics Kenya chief, Jackson Tuwei, said that the country formally bid for the championships on Friday, adding that plans are been perfected to ensure necessary modalities are put in place to win the pitching.
According to him, we formally confirmed our bid to host the global championships on Friday, October 1 which was the deadline set by World Athletics.
“We organised two very successful world junior championships at the Kasarani stadium in 2017 and in August 2021, where a number of world records and personal bests were realised. We learnt a lot of lessons in staging both events, and realistically it is our time to bring the biggest event,” he said.
Africa has never hosted the World Athletics (WA) premier showpiece, which was first contested in Helsinki, Finland in 1983.
The Kenyan sports minister, Amina Mohammed, first announced the country’s bid for the 2025 world championships in Doha in September 2019, after WA said the global event would be held on a rotational basis across continents.
