• Tuwei added: “World Athletics has called for countries interested in hosting the 2025 and 2027 championships to bid.
• “The event was held behind closed doors but volunteers stepped in and made the atmosphere great,” said Ridgeon.
After staging a successful World under 20 Athletics Championships, Kenya is keen to bid to host the World Athletics Championships.
“”In 2007, we hosted the World Cross Country Championships in Mombasa, 10 years later we successfully hosted the World Under 18 and now World under 20. The question is what next? We are definitely going to bid for the World championships in either 2025 or 2027,” said Athletics Kenya President Jack Tuwei.
Tuwei spoke at Kasarani during a press conference on Sunday, accompanied by World Athletics chief executive Jon Ridgeon.
Tuwei added: “World Athletics has called for countries interested in hosting the 2025 and 2027 championships to bid. We have started the bidding process already. Kenya is ripe to host the global event.”
If successful, Kenya will be the first country in Africa to stage the biennial event.
Tuwei added that Kenya will seek to defend the WU20 title in Cali, Colombia next year.
“Immediately after this, our focus will turn to preparing a team for next year’s championships. Most athletes who participated in the current edition will be ineligible for the next event but I’m very confident that Kenya will again field a strong team,” added Tuwei.
“Time is not on our side. We will immediately sit and draw a program.”
Ridgeon and Tuwei hailed the government of Kenya for supporting the event.
“The event was held behind closed doors but volunteers stepped in and made the atmosphere great,” said Ridgeon.
He said the event was hugely successful despite the Covid-19 challenges. During the championship, more than 10, 000 antigen, 5, 000 lamp and 4, 000 PCR tests were done.
Ridgeon hailed the athletes, teams and organisers for their dedication and determination to make the Nairobi event a success despite the logistical challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic.
"These championships have not just taken place, they have been highly successful,'' Ridgeon said. "We have all been so impressed by the range and depth of talent we have seen from these young athletes.
"The last World U20 Championships (in Tampere in 2018) featured names like Armand Duplantis, Jakob Ingebrigtsen and Peruth Chemutai among others, all Olympic champions just three years later. So it's reasonable to think we've seen some of the Paris 2024 champions-to-be in Nairobi."
"The next four years offer unprecedented opportunities for these future champions to move onto the senior World Championships and Olympic stages. I'm really looking forward to seeing many of these young champions rising through the senior ranks."
The Championships have been broadcast in more than 70 countries. Every other country has had access to a livestream through the World Athletics YouTube channel.
Namibia and Israel had their first ever world U20 champions (Christine Mboma in the women's 200m, Yonathan Kapitolnik in the men's high jump).
Hong Kong China, Kosovo, Malta, Oman and South Sudan had their first finalists at the championships.