With all eyes eagerly awaiting to watch the World Athletics Championships starting on Saturday, August 19, 2023, in Budapest, Hungary, there is a spike in interest in future World Athletics events, as these events are the preeminent track and field and running competitions in the world.
The World Athletics Council met in Budapest this past weekend for their 231st meeting in preparation for the upcoming 2023 World Athletics Championships, now just days away.
Among different topics on the table, the World Athletics Council discussed and finalized the location for several future World Athletics Series events.
In a press release published yesterday, August 14, 2023, the World Athletics Council confirmed the host cities for three of these future World Athletics Series events.
Here are the upcoming post cities that have been announced:
- San Diego, California, USA has been awarded the 2025 World Athletics Road Running Championships.
- Copenhagen, Denmark has been awarded the 2026 World Athletics Road Running Championships
- Eugene, Oregon, USA has been awarded the 2026 World Athletics U20 Championships.
In the press release, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said:
โWe are grateful that so many great cities around the world are interested in hosting our events and weโre delighted with the quality of the candidates we have had to choose from to host these World Athletics Series events over the next three years. The standard of bids is so high that we would like to encourage those who were not successful today to continue talking to us about staging future events.โ
This will be the first year that the World Athletics Road Running Championships is being contested.
The event will take place on October 1, 2023, in Riga, Latvia.
The inaugural 2023 World Athletics Road Running Championships will include championship distances of one mile, 5km, and half marathon.
Beginning in 2025, the World Athletics Road Running Championships is slated to become an annual event, which is why San Diego, USA has already been selected for 2025 and Copenhagen, Denmark, has been selected for 2026 as the future host cities in a competitive bidding process.
The World Athletics Council also announced that Lima, Perรบ, has been reinstated as the host city of the 2024 World Athletics U20 Championships, as previously scheduled.
Back in April of this year, the Peruvian Athletics Federation informed World Athletics that political instability, social unrest, and natural disasters that were then taking place in Peru were placing the Federation and the local organizing committee (LOC) in a position where Lima would be unable to stage the World Athletics U20 Championships next year.
However, the situation in Lima, Peru has fortunately stabilized, and the Peruvian Federation has confirmed that it is now back in a position to host the event from August 26-31, 2024.
These should all be exciting events and a true honor for the host cities.
You can learn how to watch the World Athletics Championships, starting Saturday, August 19, 2023, here.