MONACO: Qatar’s emergence as a global sporting hub gained further clout when Doha was chosen as host city for the 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championships yesterday.
The fast-growing city alongside the Arabian Gulf will become the first from the Middle East to stage the blue riband event.
Overlooked for the 2017 championships in favour of London, the Qatari capital was selected ahead of rival bids from 1992 Olympic hosts Barcelona and the American city of Eugene, often referred to as Track Town.
Doha earned 12 votes to Eugene’s nine and Barcelona’s six in the initial secret ballot of the IAAF Council before winning 15-12 over Eugene in the second vote.
It is a timely boost for Qatar which has been mired in the controversy surrounding world soccer governing body FIFA’s decision to award the desert nation the 2022 World Cup.
IAAF Vice President Dahlan Al Hamad and head of the Doha 2019 bid, said the choice of the city was a “great opportunity” to take athletics to new regions.
“The World Championships for us will be a unique one,” he told a news conference in Monte Carlo’s Fairmont Hotel.
“We will organise it to a high level and these championships will expand the horizons of the IAAF.”
The 17th World Championships will take place at the newly-modernised Khalifa Stadium at the end of September and early October, later than usual, to spare competitors from the worst of the searing desert heat.
Temperatures in Doha at that time of year are typically about 35 degrees Celcius during the morning and 30 degrees in the evenings, no more stifling than at previous world championship venues like Tokyo and Seville.
Long-serving IAAF President Lamine Diack said the three candidates had been the best he had seen.
“I’m sure that in Doha we will have a wonderful edition of the World Championships,” he said. “I’m convinced they are committed to sport and they are doing the right things sand it will continue like that.”
Doha hosted the men-only Qatar Athletic Super Grand Prix in 1997 and that meeting has since been incorporated into the Diamond League. It also hosted the 2010 World Indoors Championships.
Qatar Olympic Committee Secretary General and chairman of the Doha bid Sheikh Saoud Abdulrahman Al Thani praised the “fair play” in the bidding process. “We would like to thank the IAAF for the trust they have placed in us and guarantee to deliver on our commitments,” he said. “We extend our warmest appreciation to the teams from Eugene and Barcelona for their friendship, fair play and respect throughout the bidding process.
“At this time of dramatic sporting growth in Qatar, hosting Doha 2019 marks a new era in our sporting achievements.”
Eugene, known as Track Town, was hoping to become the first American city to host the event which began in 1983 in Helsinki.
It will host the 2016 World Indoor Championships.
Barcelona was attempting to become the second Spanish city to host the event, following Seville in 1999. REUTERS
