NAIROBI, Kenya, May 18 – Athletics Kenya boss Jackson Tuwei believes that Kenya has ticked all the boxes to successfully host the 2025 World Athletics Championships, with the hosts set to be announced in Oregon in July.
Kenya had placed a bid to host the Championship, after successfully hosting the World Under-18 and Under-20Championships in 2017 and 2021 respectively.
“We are not just ripe. We have been ripe for a long time,” a confident Tuwei told Capital Sport.
“I believe that Kenya is ready to host the world. We have shown our capabilities with the World Under-18 in 2017 and last year’s World Under-20 despite all the difficulties we had. I believe and I am very confident that Kenya will be given the hosting rights,” said Tuwei.
President Uhuru Kenyatta during his speech at the Kip Keino Classic Two weeks ago and reiterated at the Nairobi Classic Marathon, is also confident that Kenya can successfully host the best of the best in World Athletics.
“Because of the infrastructure we have developed, we are very hopeful we are well prepared that in 2025 our country will have the pride and pleasure of hosting the first World Athletics Championships to be held on the African continent,” President Kenyatta said.
A group of World Athletics supervisors were in town a month ago, inspecting the Moi Sports Centre Kasarani and other amenities to see their readiness and ability to host the Senior World Champs.
Tuwei said the World Athletics team was impressed with what they saw.
“They were very pleased with what we showed them. Some even posted on World Athletics Groups that they were vey happy with what Kenya had to offer and so we remain hopeful. Kenya is an athletics country and we would be proud to host the world here,” Tuwei noted.
“We have hosted very successful editions of the Kip Keino Classic and that shows just how much we can do if given the opportunity. The third edition was absolutely amazing and we showed the world what we can do,” he further said.
Tuwei also remains confident that Kenya can scale up the Kip Keino Classic to Diamond League status, becoming only the second African city to host the prestigious one day meet.
