Three years back, roughly around the same time of the year, the whole of Qatar waited with bated breath, only to be disappointed in the end. Doha had bid for the hosting rights of the 2017 World Championships, but lost out to London in a two-horse race, by 16 votes to 10.
Exactly 20 days from now, in Monaco on November 18, the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) will decide on the host city for the 2019 World Championships. And Doha is in the race again, with the rival challengers being the cities of Barcelona (Spain) and Eugene (USA).
This time round, the Qatari capital has submitted an even stronger bid file for the ’19 edition.
Eugene (USA) and Barcelona (Spain) will be Doha’s challengers. Doha’s bid book, which includes some of the ideas from the 2017 file as well as new ones, is ambitious in scope.
The most impressive promise is the setting up of an ‘Athletes’ City’ for the first time in the competition’s history. The Msheireb Downtown Doha project, spread over 35 hectares, will be converted into the ‘Athletes’ City’ for the event. It is situated just 10km away from the Khalifa International Stadium, the proposed venue.
The Khalifa stadium, which hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2006 Doha Asian Games as well as the athletics competitions, is currently undergoing renovation and should be ready in two years’ time. Once complete, the state-of-the-art stadium will boast of the world’s first 100m long video wall-screen. It will also be able to screen multiple events simultaneously.
Qatar Athletics Federation president Dahlan al-Hamad is both excited and confident about the city’s bid. “We’re delighted to have submitted our bid to host the 2019 World Championships. We’ve a unique bid that’ll utilise our proven experience of hosting world-class events, our existing state-of-the-art facilities and world-leading sporting innovation to deliver an exceptional World Championships in a new region,” said al-Hamad.
Eugene is likely to be Doha’s toughest challenger. That the IAAF Worlds has never visited the USA since its inception in 1983 will be their rallying cry. For Barcelona, which had to withdraw from the 2017 race due to negative public perception, popular support for the bid is doubtful.
An IAAF Evaluation Commission, led by Lord Sebastian Coe, who is also a vice-president of the IAAF, is already in Doha to check and evaluate the facilities, having already done the same in Barcelona and Eugene before this.
The Commission will analyse the capabilities of each contender in a number of areas, based on careful study of the bidding documents and on-site visits, and submit its report to the IAAF Council on November 7. The host city for the 2019 Worlds will be decided in Monaco by the IAAF Council on November 18, following final presentations by the three candidate cities.
The wait, hopefully, will prove to be a fruitful one this time.
