Kenya will stage the 2029 World Athletics Championships, becoming the first African country to host the sport’s flagship event. The decision was confirmed at a World Athletics council meeting in Budapest.

The championships will be held in the capital, Nairobi, at the 48,000-capacity Kasarani Stadium. London and Rome lost out in the bidding, while Munich was awarded hosting rights for the 2031 edition.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe described Kenya’s bid as “compelling and emotional.”

“Kenya is one of the great athletics nations,” Coe said. “The sport is woven into the fabric of the country. It was important that the World Championships should come to Africa when we had the right host, the right bid and the right circumstances. Nairobi has demonstrated emphatically that this is their moment.”

A record that carried the bid

Kenya’s athletics heritage was central to its case. The country has won 72 World Championship gold medals and 38 Olympic golds, overwhelmingly in middle- and long-distance running, and is the second most successful nation in the history of the World Championships. At the 2025 edition it finished second in the medal table with seven golds and 11 medals in total.

Two-time Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge, who also won 5000m gold at the 2003 World Championships, was among those who made the case for Nairobi during the bid process.

Kenya had bid unsuccessfully for the 2025 championships, losing to Tokyo, with infrastructure identified as the weakness in that attempt. This time the country pointed to upgrades to existing facilities. Kasarani Stadium is undergoing structural renovation ahead of Kenya’s co-hosting of the Africa Cup of Nations alongside Tanzania and Uganda next year.

Nairobi has staged the World Under-18 Championships in 2017 and the World U20 Championships in 2021, and Mombasa hosted the World Cross Country Championships in 2007 — experience the bid cited as evidence of readiness for a senior global event.

Sri Lanka’s most recent presence at the top level of world athletics came through javelin thrower Rumesh Tharanga, who won gold at the World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest this month.

Not reported

Neither outlet gives the dates for the 2029 championships, the margin or mechanics of the council vote, the cost of the Kasarani renovation, or any response from the London or Rome bid teams.

Sources