The time has come! Today, Kenya will present its bid to host the 2029 and 2031 World Athletics Championships to the World Athletics Bid Evaluation Panel in a pivotal moment for the country.

The virtual presentation to the panel, chaired by Antti Pihlakoski (who is also a World Athletics Council member from Finland), will start at 4pm.

It will be delivered by the Local Bid Committee, chaired by legendary distance runner Ibrahim Hussein, from Athletics Kenya headquarters in Riadha House.

The panel visited Kenya in May to assess the country’s readiness to host the event.

Having successfully hosted three major athletics world championships, Kenya is eager to stage one of the world’s biggest athletics events.

Two other African cities, Rabat in Morocco and Stellenbosch in South Africa, have previously hosted the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, in 1975 and 1996 respectively, before Kenya staged the 2007 edition in Mombasa.

Also Read: Inside Kenya's bid to host 2029 World Athletics Championships

Kenya won the bid to host the 2017 World Athletics Under-18 Championships at the 60,000-capacity Kasarani stadium. This was the last edition of the youth event, and the stadium was sold out for the final two days.

Thanks to this success, Kenya was awarded the delayed 2020 World Athletics Under-20 Championships, held in 2021 without any spectators due to Covid-19.

Kenya was also granted permission to host the annual World Athletics Gold Label events championships: the Kip Keino Classic Continental Tour from 2020, and the Sirikwa Classic Cross-Country Championships in Uasin Gishu County in 2022.

The Sirikwa Classic began as the Agnes Tirop Memorial, in honour of the Kenyan distance runner Agnes Tirop, who was murdered by her husband on October 12, 2021, in Iten, Elgeyo Marakwet County.

However, it was the late Confederation of Africa Athletics president Hamad Kalkaba Malboum’s dream for Africa to host the World Athletics Championships.

Speaking at the 2017 event in London, Malboum cited the success of the World Under-18 and Under-20 Championships in Nairobi, Rabat Diamond League, and the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa.

He also highlighted the success of the World Athletics Cross Country Championships, held in Mombasa in 2007 and in Kampala in 2017.

Kenya then became the first African country to bid for the 2025 edition at the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar, where the then Sports CS, Amina Mohamed, announced the bid.

Kenya later formalised and submitted its bid document to World Athletics on October 1, 2021, proposing Kasarani Stadium as the venue for the competition.