London snubbed in favour of Nairobi for 2029 World Athletics Championships

London’s bid for the 2029 World Athletics Championships has ended in heartbreak and failure after it lost out to Nairobi. It marks an historic day for the Kenyan capital as it becomes the first African city to host the global championships.

World Athletics president Seb Coe also announced that Munich would be staging the 2031 event.

One source in the London team told the Guardian they were “gutted” at the news. There will inevitably be plenty of soul searching by London’s bid team, given they were widely seen as the frontrunner.

With hindsight, the long battle with West Ham over whether they would be granted permission to use the stadium in September 2029 didn’t help, while the sparse crowds on the opening days of last month’s European Championships in Birmingham was not ideal either.

However, World Athletics sources repeatedly stressed that they had four strong bids. It is understood that Munich’s presentation to the World Athletics’ evaluation panel, which was tasked with recommending which cities should host the championships, was extraordinarily strong, while there was a strong feeling that Kenya, which has such a prestigious history in track and field, and last year came second in the medal table at the world championships in Tokyo, deserved its chance.