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| MORALE BOOSTING WORDS: Diack |
Doha may have lost the race to host the 2017 World Championships, but the Qatar’s continued effort in promoting athletics in the region has won praise from the sport’s world governing body – the IAAF.
IAAF president Lamine Diack, talking to reporters on Friday evening following announcement of London as the winner, said: “I must also congratulate Qatar on their bid which offers a great future for our sport.
“I pay tribute to them especially with the new ideas they presented and I hope they will bid again in the future.”
The intensity of the bidding recalled the vote for the World Cup last December when Qatar upstaged the favourites for the 2022 tournament.
Both bids were considered so good that earlier this week the IAAF considered awarding the 2019 championships as well to satisfy both cities. However, both cities insisted they only wanted 2017.
“We had never in the history of the bidding process for the IAAF World Championships this type of ceremony with this amount of interest in the TV and newspapers and so on,” Diack said, adding, “we have never had this level before with bids all good and London won 16 to 10 votes, and the result is good for our sport.”
“I’m really happy we made a good choice today and I wish the best to the organising committee to continue its work.”
Diack has played his role on pushing Qatar’s drive in promoting athletics in the region.
What was started off as small event, only for men in 1997, Doha has since taken a long leap with a successful hosting of the 2010 World Indoor Championships – the first in the Middle East.
During a visit to Doha in 2009, Diack had lauded important part Doha played to promote the Diamond League – IAAF’s new concept for one-day athletics meetings. Doha hosted the inaugural edition of Diamond League in 2010.
“This competition is very important for the future of our sport because it involves all our events and all the athletes,” Diack said.
“We now have a series that goes around the world – not just to Europe, but Asia, the Middle East and the United States.”
Doha was keen to bring the worlds to not only showcase athletics at its best, but also to develop solutions for expanding the sport.
Chairman of Doha Bid Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, pledging Qatar’s unconditional support for the event, offering the IAAF help to further extend athletics’ global appeal.
“Our government is ready to invest heavily in your event,” he said, promising an investment totalling $236mn for the event during Doha’s 45-minute presentation before the IAAF Council members.
He said $80mn will be spend for the sole purpose of the 2017 championships, plus a further $120mn to revamp the Khalifa stadium with state-of-the-art air cooling system and construction of other infrastructure including a first ever ‘Athletics City’ in the history of the championship. Doha had also offered IAAF a prize fund of $7.2mn for the championships.
Sheikh Saoud, who is also the secretary general of the Qatar Olympic Committee, also assured IAAF a sponsor for all its major events leading up to 2017, pledging Al Jazeera TV rights, worth $29mn.
He also offered IAAF to host its prestigious gala events. Starting the presentation, deputy chairman of the Doha Bid and IAAF vice president Dahlan al-Hamad, said: “As a council member one of the most important task is to make sure to develop our sport all over the world.
“And we have succeeded in this front so far,” he said, referring to IAAF’s decision to take the event to new territories – Daegu in 2011 and Beijing in 2015. “Today we have offered to continue this journey to take this journey to further extend its global reach.”
The Doha Bid team also tried to convince the IAAF council members that the heat and filling up the stadium will not be issues.
Aphrodite Maschoudi, the Doha Bid strategic planning director, promised a World Championships “like never before”, assuring that Qatar has solutions to tackle any challenges.
“With technology on our side we will regulate the temperature to optimal conditions for each event,” said Maschoudi.
Doha, taking the fight to London on spectators, also promised to sell every ticket for every session at the 40,000 capacity Khalifa stadium.
“We will sell every ticket for every session for every day,” said
Maher Safi, the bid’s marketing and communications manager. He explained the Council members in detail how Doha has planned to achieve that goal.
“Beside the domestic fans, together with our partner Qatar Airways and Qatar Tourism Authority we have developed an attractive package for travelling fans.”
While Yousuf al-Obaidly, Al Jazeera Sport’s Overseas Services, said the marathon races, which Doha had proposed to hold at night along the Corniche, would be a great TV spectacle.
“We will use the new state-of-the-art lighting system which will really make it one of the most memorable events,” he said.
But the IAAF Council remained split on Doha’s ability to fill the stadium, which apparently helped London steal away the winning votes at the end.