By Kenyan Vibe
Photos: YouTube|Wikimedia Commons
It’s official, Nairobi will host the 2029 World Athletics Championships. The first senior edition of the meet ever awarded to African soil.
The championships have run since Helsinki in 1983, moved to a biennial calendar from 1991, and cycled almost entirely through Europe, East Asia and North America since. Africa has supplied a large share of the medals across four decades and none of the senior hosts, until this vote.
The decision came from a World Athletics Council meeting in Budapest in mid September. Four cities, Nairobi, London, Rome and Munich, bid for the 2029 and 2031 slots, and the Council split the cycle between Nairobi and Munich.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe called Nairobi’s file “compelling and emotional” and said the championships would come to Africa only when the host, the bid and the circumstances lined up together.
The file itself was a rebuild. Nairobi lost the 2025 race to Tokyo largely on infrastructure scoring, then resubmitted around early August 2026 with a personal guarantee from President William Ruto on visas, security and financing, public backing from Eliud Kipchoge, and bid work led by Athletics Kenya figures including Ibrahim Hussein and Barnaba Korir.
