Kenya has confirmed its bid to host the 2025 athletics world championships. If they are accepted, it would bring the event to Africa for the first time.
Nairobi has in the last four years, hosted both the world under-18 and under-20 world championships but currently faces a lot of high-profile rivals including Tokyo, which hosted the Olympic Games in July.
“We formally confirmed our bid to host the global championships on Friday, October 1 which was the deadline set by World Athletics,” Kenyan Athletics chief, Jackson Tuwei told AFP.
“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,” he said.
“We learnt a lot of lessons in staging both events, and realistically it is our time to bring the biggest event.”
Africa has never hosted the World Athletics (WA) premier showpiece, which was first contested in Helsinki, Finland in 1983.
Amina Mohammed, Kenyan sports minister, 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.
