NAIROBI, November 17- Kenya could mark another key milestone in her sporting history should world governing body, IAAF grant the athletics powerhouse the rights to host the 2017 World Youth Championships on Tuesday as widely expected.
The nation will be anxiously waiting IAAF’s General Congress verdict on the country’s that shall stage 2017 edition of the biennial age group global showpiece open to runners aged between 16 and 17 as well as the 2019 World Championships in Athletics.
“Final preparations for the IAAF World Youth Championships 2017 Nairobi bid presentation. Working with a great team and looking forward to the best,” Athletics Kenya (AK) CEO, Isaac Mwangi who is in Monaco together with the rest of the bid team posted on his Face Book page on Sunday.
Reports in Monaco indicate Kenya is the only country in the running to hold the 2017 World Youth and IAAF’s website confirmed as much on Monday when only the three candidates for the 2019 Worlds Barcelona, Eugene and Qatar were slotted for final presentations on their bids on Tuesday at the Congress.
Argentina and the same American city in Oregon had earlier expressed their interests before pulling out giving Kenya the clear path to stage a second IAAF world event after the 2007 World Cross in Mombasa that was globally acclaimed despite the heat.
AK used the template that successfully hosted the 2010 African Senior Athletics Championships to sell Nairobi as a suitable city to host the global age showpiece with improvements in road and Internet infrastructure as well as expanding hotel industry further bonuses.
Necessary paperwork was filed mid October after Athletics Kenya (AK) secured the necessary Government guarantee to underwrite the massive budget required to host the global event in the capital Nairobi.
The State through the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Sport had supported their bid to host the event open to athletes between the ages of 16 and 17 in Nairobi.
“We met the minister and the permanent secretary and I’m glad to announce the minister is going to sign the document and by 4 o’clock they should be here to be dispatched to Monaco. The ministry has given us the go ahead to bid for the event.
“Once the bid is gone through there will be 20 delegates that will go to Monaco to defend the bid, adding two youth athletes who will go there as ambassadors and once we get everything then we can start hitting the road since we have done the technical part of it which is already in Monaco,” Kiplagat announced last month when the State guarantee that had stalled the event, leading IAAF to extend the deadline to October 31.
Kenya was able to meet the submission deadline of September 25 which marked the second stage of the bidding process for the global event and now they will make the final presentation and defence of the bid on Tuesday.
Over 150 nations and about 1,600 athletes in the two weeks of the global event where global stars such as Usain Bolt (Jamaica) and Mercy Cherono who travelled as part of the bid team made their name.