Lord Sebastian Coe, president of the IAAF, believes Qatar’s hosting of the World Championships for the first time in the Middle East will open new horizons for the sport of athletics in the region.
Qatar is just days away from hosting the World Championships for the first time in history, with the event officially starting on 27 September and running through to 6 October.
Lord Sebastian Coe said in remarks today that Qatar’s hosting of the biggest sporting event of the year would help give a new audience the chance to discover the excitement of top-level athletics.
He added: “Forty-nine new world champions will be crowned at the magnificent Khalifa International Stadium, including the winners of the new mixed 4x400m relay, being held at the World Championships for the first time before it is added to next year’s Olympic Games programme in Tokyo”.
He continued: “We welcome all the world’s athletics champions to Doha to compete in the IAAF’s most important championship, held in the Middle East for the first time, and personally I am confident the Doha 2019 World Championships will be exceptional by every measure”
Coe praised Qatar’s great organisational capabilities in hosting major global sporting events over many years, affirming that Doha already has a strong track record as an ideal host for some of the IAAF’s most important championships, including the 2010 World Indoor Championships and the opening meeting of the annual Diamond League over the past ten years. He said: “We are confident it will once again put on a world-class event for the world’s best athletes, with around 2,000 athletes from 209 countries taking part, and this year’s championships are set to be broadcast in more than 200 countries worldwide to a total audience estimated at a billion people.”
