Beijing selected as host for 2027 World Athletics Championships

The World Athletics Council has announced that the Chinese capital of Beijing has been selected as the selected host city for the 2027 World Athletics Championships.

12 years on from the Chinese capital’s successful staging of athletics’ flagship event and almost two decades on from the Beijing Olympic Games.

Both events were centred on the Beijing National Stadium, which will also stage the 2027 edition.

The 2027 event will mark the second consecutive World Athletics Championships in Asia, with Tokyo scheduled to host in 2025. China will also host next year’s World Athletics Indoor Championships in the city of Nanjing.

China was awarded hosting rights to the event after the Italian Athletics Federation announced that it had withdrawn a bid for the competition to be held in Rome due to a lack of financial support from the government.

Announcing the hosting, World Athletics President, Sebastian Coe stated “with a population of more than 1.4 billion, China is one of the biggest sports markets in the world.

“It was the top performer for Wanda Diamond League broadcast consumption in 2023 with a cumulative audience of 368.9 million. This poses a massive opportunity to grow our sport and fan base in one of the biggest commercial markets in the world.

“With the announcement of China as our next host, our last four World Athletics Championships have now been awarded to the world’s four largest economies; the USA (Oregon), the EU (Budapest), Japan (Tokyo) and China (Beijing).”

Wang Nan, World Athletics Council Member and Vice President of the Chinese Athletics Association (CAA), added “the CAA will work together with the Beijing organising committee to make every effort to prepare for the championships, ensure that the championships will be held to the highest quality standard, and strive to present a wonderful World Athletics Championships to make more contributions to the development of athletics across the world.”

The announcement at the 234th World Athletics Council Meeting ahead of the start of the World Indoor Championships in the Scottish city of Glasgow.

Earlier this month, Beijing was awarded hosting rights for the 2029 World Aquatics Championships.

Safeguarding Policy
The World Athletics Council Meeting also received an update on progress made in relation to athlete safeguarding.

Detailed safeguarding event plans will be in place for all World Athletics Series events and the new online Safeguarding Essentials training course is being promoted for everyone in athletics to take.

A revised version of the World Athletics Safeguarding Policy was approved and will be uploaded to the World Athletics Library shortly. The principal changes are to make it mandatory for Area Associations to have their own safeguarding policies and procedures by the end of 2024 and for there to be consequences for Area Associations and Member Federations if they do not have their own safeguarding policies and procedures by the deadlines set by the Council.

Image: The Beijing National Stadium at the opening of the 2008 Olympics. Credit: Shutterstock.