Venues for world athletics championships defined

Havana, March 24 (RHC)-- The Turkish city of Antalya and the Polish city of Torun will host world athletics events in the coming seasons: the team race-walking competition in 2024 and the indoor track and field event in 2026, respectively.

This was agreed at the most recent meeting of the World Athletics (WA) Council, held virtually for three days, during which other issues linked to the development of the King Sport were discussed.

"Both Turkey and Poland have established good precedents as hosts of international athletics events," said through the WA's social media pages its president, British Sebastian Coe.

Around 500 participants from 50 nations are expected to take part in the universal team race walking competition. Their results will be taken into account for the qualification to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

The last major athletics event on Turkish territory was the 2012 world indoor event, hosted by Istanbul, a city that recently also organized the European indoor event.

Torun is known for the traditional Copernicus Cup, which is part of the world indoor athletics tour and in which the stellar Swedish pole vaulter Armand Duplantis set his first world record.

Before competing in the Polish city, the track and field stars will take on the world indoor invitationals in Glasgow 2024 and Nanjing 2025.

Although these events are usually held in alternate years, the WA agreed to break the sequence to give China the opportunity to host the event it had to cancel in 2020 due to the impact of the covid-19 pandemic.

During the most recent Council meeting, an update was given on the preparations for the World Athletics Championships in Budapest 2023, which will be hosted by the Hungarian capital from August 19 to 27.

Incidentally, the first championship of this kind was held in 1983 and the WA has designed a program of celebrations for the 40th anniversary, as well as a wide range of content that it will broadcast on social networks during the season.

The plan includes the dissemination of interviews with the protagonists in these four decades; and the call for athletics fans to vote for the 40 memorable moments from Helsinki 1983 to Oregon 2022.

Voting will be public and fans will have the option to have their say in selecting the 10 most outstanding moments starring women and men.

"Over 40 years we have grown as a sport in countless ways. This is a perfect opportunity for us to reflect on and celebrate that history, while remaining focused on the progress we have yet to make to secure our future," Coe said.

Cuba is part of that glorious history, especially thanks to a golden generation of stellar athletes such as Javier Sotomayor, Ivan Pedroso, Ana Fidelia Quiros and Yipsi Moreno, along with youngsters like Denia Caballero and Yarisley Silva.