Beijing Hosts 2015 World Championships

Beijing is set to host the second major IAAF even after the 2008 Olympic Games

Following 2008 Olympic Games, Beijing will also host the 2015 World Championships after the Chinese capital remained the only bidder for the big event due to London’s withdraw. Thus, this will be a great opportunity for a 1.6 billion country to assimilate the athletics culture, according to IAAF president Lamine Diack. And the opportunity is the bigger the athletics president takes China as a real continent rather than a bigger country. The huge event will take place on Bird’s Nest stadium, the one which also hosted the last Olympics and Jamaica’s Usain Bolt world record at 100m two years ago.

The championships take place every two years, Beijing winning the race after the English capital dropped out as London is set to host the 2012 Olympic Games. However, vice-mayor Liu Jingmin claimed that the city of Beijing is expected to host thus the first major event since 2008, reason for which the local officials planned to organize vary international athletics talks ahead of the championships as Shanghai remains the only Chinese city that currently hosts such big athletics events, including the Diamond League competition.

Said Jingmin: “2015 will be the most important sporting event (in China) after the 2008 Olympic Games. It will be very significant in the promotion of sport in China.” Diack looked delighted as well with the choice. “(It’s a great chance) to help build up our sport and the culture of athletics in a country of 1.6 billion. As we sometimes say, China is not a country, it’s a continent. So this is a fantastic opportunity.” The Bird’s Nest national stadium capacity is of 80,000 seats.

Beijing joined the race for the 2015 world championships this August and remained the only ones to run for the big competition, the vice-mayor mentioning in the same time that the officials plan to include the Chinese capital to the world circuit, where cities like London, Shanghai, Moscow, Berlin, etc are all included. Finally, Liu expects the same success the Olympic Games brought in Beijing as hundreds of thousands will invade the Chinese capital again.

Next year’s world championships will be hosted by South Korean city of Daegu, while the 2013 event is expected to take place in Russian capital, Moscow.