Kenya has won the right to host the 2029 World Athletics Championships, making it the first African country ever to stage global track and field’s flagship event.
The World Athletics Council announced the decision on Tuesday, September 15, during its 242nd meeting in Budapest, Hungary, selecting Nairobi ahead of rival bids from London, Rome and Munich.
Munich was awarded the following edition instead, meaning the championships will return to Germany in 2031, two years after Kenya’s turn as host. The event will follow the 2027 championships in Beijing, scheduled for September 10 to 19 that year.
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe described Nairobi’s winning bid in glowing terms. “Nairobi presented a compelling and emotional bid, and taking the World Athletics Championships to Africa for the first time will be historic,” he said.
“Kenya is one of the great athletics nations. The sport is woven into the fabric of the country, and athletes such as world gold medallists Faith Kipyegon, Vivian Cheruiyot, Eliud Kipchoge, Hellen Obiri and David Rudisha, as well as two-time Olympic champion Kip Keino, multiple world cross-country champion Paul Tergat and multiple world half marathon champion Tegla Loroupe, have shaped the history of our sport.”
He added that the timing and quality of Kenya’s bid made the decision an easy one to defend. “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.”
Nairobi’s bid was centred on the Moi International Sports Centre in Kasarani, a 48,000-capacity venue that has undergone refurbishment as part of the government’s wider push to position Kenya as a regional sports hub, alongside the separate development of the Talanta Sports City project.
The bid also carried a personal guarantee from President William Ruto, and drew support from some of the country’s biggest athletics names, including two-time Olympic marathon champion Eliud Kipchoge, who also won 5,000m gold at the 2003 World Championships and helped make the case for Nairobi during the bidding process.
Kenya’s case rested heavily on its track record both as a competitor and as a host nation. The country is the second most successful nation in World Athletics Championships history, with 72 World Championship gold medals and 38 Olympic gold medals to date, predominantly in middle and long-distance running. It finished second on the medal table at the Tokyo 2025 championships, collecting seven golds and 11 medals overall.
On the hosting side, Nairobi previously staged the 2017 World Under-18 Championships and the 2021 World Under-20 Championships, while Mombasa hosted the 2007 World Cross Country Championships, giving organisers a body of experience to draw on.
Nairobi had previously bid unsuccessfully for the 2025 championships, which went to Tokyo, with insufficient infrastructure cited as a key weakness at the time. This time, the country pointed to its stadium upgrades and continued hosting of the Kip Keino Classic, a World Athletics Continental Tour Gold event held annually in Nairobi since 2020, as evidence that it was finally ready.
The win marks a historic first for the wider continent, which has never previously hosted the senior World Athletics Championships despite producing many of the sport’s biggest stars.
It builds on a broader trend of Africa gradually taking on larger athletics hosting roles in recent years, including Kampala’s staging of the World Cross Country Championships in 2017 and Gaborone’s hosting of the World Athletics Relays earlier in 2026, the first time that event had been held on the continent.
With the 2029 championships still three years away, attention now turns to how Nairobi and the Kenyan government follow through on the infrastructure and organisational commitments that underpinned their winning bid.
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