After nearly four decades of bypassing the United States, track and field's marquee event is finally headed to the country that has been the dominant force in the sport.
The small Oregon city of Eugene, a northwestern town steeped in American track history and the home of the University of Oregon, was awarded the 2021 world athletics championships on Thursday in a surprise move that came without a bidding process.
The IAAF, the governing body of the sport, said the decision was driven by the desire to break into the key American market.
"We have to give it to Eugene, to a city where athletics is like a religion," IAAF president Lamine Diack said.
Eugene has become a hotbed for track and field in recent decades, just as interest in the sport has waned.
The city hosts an annual Diamond League meet, one of a series of top-tier IAAF track events, and staged the world junior championships last year. The 2016 world indoor championships will be held in nearby Portland.
And it was a former University of Oregon runner and his track coach who started Nike in the early 1970s.
Nike Inc.'s headquarters, outside Portland in Beaverton, are just up the road, providing a powerful incentive to take the championships to Eugene.
"The United States is the world's largest sports market. We need to be there," IAAF vice president Sebastian Coe told The Associated Press.
Coe, a middle-distance running great who also sits on the IAAF Council, is running to succeed Diack as IAAF president in August.
The 2015 competition will be held in Beijing, followed by London in 2017 and Doha, Qatar, in 2019.
Although the United States has never hosted the championships, the country's athletes have dominated the medals table, finishing at the top of the list in 11 of the 14 previous competitions. The other three times the Americans were second.
The IAAF said it bypassed the usual bidding process and chose Eugene because of the financial support offered by the governor of Oregon and the United States Olympic Committee, as well as NBC's commitment to produce and broadcast the event.
The 2007 event was also awarded, to Osaka in Japan, without bidding.
Not everybody was happy with the announcement, which came during the second half of the IAAF Council meeting in Beijing.
"I must say I am very surprised by the complete lack of process in the decision the IAAF has taken," said Svein Arne Hansen, a Norwegian who recently took over as president of European Athletics.
"The IAAF knew that Gothenburg was a serious candidate for the 2021 world championships. Swedish Athletics and the city had put in a lot of effort over the years to prepare the bidding application but they have not even been given the chance to bid for the event."
Gothenburg hosted the fifth edition of the world championships in 1995.
Share
