After a breathtaking and successful hosting of the World Athletics Under-20 Championships during the past weekend, Kenya is now looking to go a notch higher and eventually bid for the Senior World Athletics Championships. The Championships are currently set to be held in Oregon, USA come 15th of July, 2022. "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,” said Athletics Kenya President Jack Tuwei.
Tuwei added: “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.” Africa is still yet to host such a massive event and if Kenya's bid goes through successfully, the country itself will be the first in Africa to stage the biennial event. “Immediately after this, our focus will turn to preparing a team for next year’s championships. Most athletes who participated in the current edition will be ineligible for the next event but I’m very confident that Kenya will again field a strong team,” said Tuwei in reference to the World U20 Championships titles in Cali, Colombia next year.
The bid looks to be highly regarded more so due to the just concluded under 20 Championships. The sporting event was actually broadcasted in more than 70 countries with others in the globe being able to access the livestream through the World Athletics YouTube channel. Outstanding records were also set as Namibia and Israel had their first ever world U20 champions (Christine Mboma in the women's 200m, Yonathan Kapitolnik in the men's high jump).
With the facilities and state of the art tracks installed at Kasarani Stadium, Tuwei also hopes that the Kip Keino classic set for next month will have athletes at the same stadium. “The championship has gone well, in our view. For athletes to break records, it means that this is one of the best tracks around here. It is a fast track that is good for athletics,” added Tuwei.