Kenya awarded hosting rights for 2029 World Athletics Championships in Nairobi
Kenya has been chosen to host the 2029 World Athletics Championships in Nairobi, World Athletics president Lord Coe announced in Budapest on Tuesday, with the city becoming the first African host for the event. President William Ruto said the championships will be "coming home" and described the winning bid as a "victory for generations of athletes" who have made the nation "synonymous with excellence" on the track and road.
Kenya is the second-most successful nation in the history of the World Championships with 72 gold medals, behind the United States, and the majority of those titles—alongside 38 Olympic gold medals—have come in middle- and long-distance events. At the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo Beatrice Chebet and Faith Kipyegon completed a Kenyan one-two in the women's 5,000m, and Kenya won seven golds to finish second in the medal table. Lord Coe said athletics is "woven into the fabric" of the nation and that Kenyans have helped "shape the history" of the sport, calling Kenya's bid "compelling and emotional." He name-checked Eliud Kipchoge, who was involved in lobbying for the bid, men's 800m world record holder David Rudisha and multiple world and Olympic medallist Faith Kipyegon.
Nairobi beat London and Rome for the 2029 rights, while Munich was selected to stage the 2031 edition; Coe hailed the "quality, ambition and commitment" of all four bidding cities. London, Munich and Rome have all previously held the Olympics, and London hosted the World Championships as recently as 2017. UK Athletics chief executive Jack Buckner said his team was "deeply disappointed" to see London miss out.
World Athletics' assessment of Kenyan public engagement and digital reach featured heavily in the bid: some 68% of Kenyans surveyed rated their interest in athletics as high compared with a global average of 39%, athletics is the country's second-most followed sport behind football, and Kenya ranked fourth among nations in terms of World Athletics' social media followers. Those metrics were presented alongside the country's history of producing world-class distance runners.
Infrastructure upgrades were central to addressing weaknesses identified in Kenya's previous 2025 bid. Kasarani Stadium will undergo a complete structural upgrade ahead of the championships, the venue will have a 48,000 capacity and is scheduled for use when Kenya co-hosts football's 2027 Africa Cup of Nations next June and July alongside Tanzania and Uganda. The stadium lies about a half-hour drive from Nairobi's central business district, lacks rail connections and experienced overcrowding during some matches at the African Nations Championship, which led to reduced capacity for certain fixtures.
Officials involved in the successful bid said they learned from the 2025 effort. "We learned from the 2025 bid because there were areas that we did not score well," Barnaba Korir told the BBC World Service. "Because of that, we managed to improve on those areas. I'm happy that the infrastructure that we have already developed will also meet the standards that we have seen all over the world." Korir added World Athletics officials were "very satisfied" by Kenya's transport plan and said organisers would secure the "huge" and "legally binding" funding figure earmarked even if there is a change in government.
Funding and operational guarantees featured in the bid: President Ruto made financial and security guarantees and said, "We thank World Athletics for the confidence it has placed in Kenya. We will honour that confidence by delivering an unforgettable championship worthy of our athletes, our country and our continent." Elijah Mwangi, principal secretary at the State Department for Sports, said the government will provide the bulk of financing, with $78m (£58.5m) the current estimate for the government's contribution and sponsorship deals also playing a role.
Organisers face ticketing and attendance challenges highlighted by past events. The cheapest tickets for the Under-18 World Championships in 2017 were priced at 200 Kenyan shillings ($1.15, £1.14) but attendances were low until entry was made free; World Athletics generated $522m in revenue from Tokyo 2025 with 619,000 tickets sold over nine days, while London sold a record 705,000 tickets in 2017 and Doha in 2019 saw sparse numbers. Korir expressed confidence that the Kasarani Stadium "will be full" on "every day" of competition, including morning sessions, if sales begin early enough. The bid comes amid a spate of doping scandals, with 11 individuals banned by the Athletics Integrity Unit so far this year alone.
Kenya now has three years to meet the logistical and organisational demands of staging the first World Championships in Africa, with a chance to test operations during the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations events in Nairobi and Kasarani Stadium. China’s capital Beijing will stage the World Championships in 2027, providing the next scheduled global edition before Nairobi 2029.