London has been awarded the 2017 World Athletics Championships, in a decision that will boost hopes for a positive legacy for the sport and for the Olympic Stadium after next year's Games.
Following a vote of the 26 members of the International Association of Athletics Federations Council, London beat Doha to the prize.
Doha promised a championship budget of £150m and also pledged a new sponsor to bankroll various IAAF events to the tune of $29m (£18m), while guaranteeing to sell every ticket for every session of competition. The London bid matched Doha's promise of a £5m prize fund.
London's campaign had focused on the fact that it had the overwhelming support of athletes, could guarantee full stadia for every session and offered a better commercial return to sponsors and broadcasters. There was also a plea to Lamine Diack, the IAAF president, to "close the circle" after he voted in 2005 for London to host the 2012 Olympics on the basis that it would leave an athletics legacy for the capital.
The teenage sprinter Jodie Williams had earlier joined the London mayor, Boris Johnson, the London 2012 chairman and IAAF vice-president Lord Coe and the sports minister Hugh Robertson to drive those points home in a half-hour presentation. More than 100 athletes past and present had supported the London bid.
The decision will be seen as personal vindication for Coe, who was closely associated with the promise in Singapore in 2005, when bidding for the Olympics, that there would be a legacy for his sport from the Games. He has since fought hard to retain the track in the stadium. London's win could also boost his hopes of succeeding Diack as the next president of the IAAF, in 2015.
The decision will also come as a relief to ministers and Olympic Park Legacy Company officials, who are dealing with renewed questions over the future of the stadium in Stratford following the collapse of a deal with West Ham United and Newham council amid a slew of legal challenges. They will now proceed with plans to re-tender for the stadium early next month, secure in the knowledge that their promise to keep the track for 99 years has been bolstered by the fact that the world championships will use it in 2017.
For Robertson, Johnson and Coe – all of whom were involved in the 2018 football World Cup bid humiliation, in which England were beaten by Russia – the IAAF's decision to come to London in 2017 will bring a degree of catharsis. For UK Athletics, it will boost hopes that next year's Olympic Games can be the start of a golden period for the sport, with increased commercial appeal and profile.
By Owen Gibson
Source: www.guardian.co.uk