Nairobi has been chosen to host the 2029 World Athletics Championships, becoming the first African city to stage the global track and field event.
Nairobi will host the 2029 World Outdoor Athletics Championships, beating off competition from London, Munich and Rome to become the first African hosts, World Athletics announced Tuesday.
The 2031 championships will be held in Munich, returning the event to Germany for the first time since Berlin staged it in 2009. Track and field’s governing body confirmed both decisions after a council meeting in Budapest, host to the recently concluded Ultimate Championship.
“We were fortunate to have four outstanding bids for 2029 and 2031, and this was not an easy decision for the Council,” World Athletics president Sebastian Coe told a press conference, describing it as one of the strongest bidding processes in the history of the sport’s flagship event.
The 2027 event has already been awarded to Beijing. “This council decision today means we’re able to deliver our World Athletics Championships in Asia, Africa and Europe over its next three editions,” Coe added. “Taking our championships to Africa for the first time will be historic. Nairobi has presented a compelling and emotional bid.”
Why Nairobi Won
Coe said the timing and readiness of Kenya’s bid were decisive factors.
“It was important that the world championship should come to Africa when we had the right host, the right bid and the right circumstances,” he said. “Nairobi has demonstrated emphatically that this is their moment to supercharge the development of our sport in Kenya and across Africa, leaving a compelling legacy that inspires a continent.”
Kenya, which had failed with a bid for the 2025 World Championships, previously hosted the 2007 World Cross Country Championships in Mombasa, the World U18 Championships in Nairobi in 2017, and the World U20 Championships in the capital in 2021. Nairobi also staged the 2010 African Athletics Championships.
“Having also been part of the bidding process for 2025, the [Nairobi] team understood and grasped what was required, and came back with a stronger proposition, and a renovated Kasarani Stadium, which is currently undergoing a complete overhaul ahead of hosting the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) 2027,” Coe said.
According to Nielsen Research cited around the announcement, Kenya was the single most interested market for athletics among surveyed countries, at 68 percent fan interest, a data point World Athletics pointed to as part of the case for Nairobi’s selection alongside the sport’s broader growth potential in the country.
“Athletics is woven into the fabric of Kenya,” Coe said, name-dropping world and Olympic middle-distance star Faith Kipyegon as one of many Kenyan athletes to “have shaped the history of our sport,” while also praising the “extraordinary” level of fan engagement in the East African country. Kenya currently sits second on the all-time World Championships medal table, behind only the United States.
A Decision That Will Draw Scrutiny
The award to Nairobi brings recognition of Kenya’s status as a distance-running powerhouse, but is also likely to draw extra scrutiny given the country’s history of doping cases among its elite runners. Marathon world record holder Ruth Chepng’etich is currently serving a three-year doping ban, one of a long list of top-level Kenyan athletes suspended over the past decade.
Kenyan Cabinet Secretary Salim Mvurya welcomed the decision, saying it showed that “the global athletics family has affirmed Kenya’s place at the heart of World Athletics.”
“The world will come to a country where running is more than competition. It is our national story, and where every generation believes that the next world champion can emerge from Kenya,” Mvurya said.
Munich Confirmed for 2031
On Munich’s successful bid, Coe praised Germany’s track record as a major-event host.
“Germany has proved time and time again that it is an outstanding and creative host for major athletics events,” he said. “We know Germany has an audience for athletics, and we know Munich 2031 has all the ingredients to be a spectacular World Athletics Championships.”
Munich last hosted a major athletics event with the 2022 European Athletics Championships at the city’s Olympic Park, though it has never staged the World Championships before; Berlin hosted in 2009 and Stuttgart in 1993. London, which lost out on a bid to host for the second time since 2017, and Rome were the other unsuccessful candidates.
Three Editions Outside Europe
Coe acknowledged that the decision means three consecutive World Championships — Beijing 2027, Nairobi 2029 and, following Tokyo 2025, effectively a run of non-European hosts — will take place away from what he called the sport’s European “heartland.”
“We openly accept that it is in large part the breadbasket of our sport,” Coe said. “But we do also have a responsibility to make sure that an international governing federation, made up of well over 200 federations, has the opportunity to be able to take our championships into areas that strategically we think will actually grow the footprint of our sport.”
Ultimate Championship 2028 Interest
Coe also said there had been “a lot of interest” in hosting the 2028 edition of the Ultimate Championship, a three-day season-ending competition created this year that brings together the best athletes across events.
“There’s already heightened interest in wanting to stage those championships,” he said.
