MONACO – The IAAF Council has decided the host cities for two 2016 IAAF World Athletics Series events taken out from Russia.
IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships, set for May 7-8, will be held in Rome and IAAF World U20 Championships, scheduled for July 19-24, will be in Bydgoszcz, Poland.
Poland entered the voting as the alone candidate, while Rome’s 9 votes gave them the event ahead of Guayaquil in Ecuador and Kyiv in Ukraine 4 each and Monterrey in Mexico 2 votes.
IAAF President Sebastian Coe, for the sake of neutrality as the head of the Council, did not participate and will also not vote in any future host city decisions.
Sebastian Coe commented: “Many congratulations to Rome and Bydgoszcz. The speed in which you assembled detailed applications and at such short notice has been inspiring. Your bids were impressive and we look forward to celebrating the achievements of the world’s best race walkers and under-20 aged athletes in your cities. I gratefully acknowledge the interest shown by all the member federations who took part in this process. Thank you on behalf of the athletes for helping us to ensure that these competitions will take place.”
An accelerated bidding process was opened on 3 December 2015 for these two IAAF World Athletics Series events following the full suspension of the Russian IAAF Member Federation ARAF, who were originally set to stage both championships.
By 9 December seven IAAF Member Federations had sent letters of interest, with five countries going on to formally submit bid applications by 22 December 2015.
