Coe aims for African 'legacy' with 2029 World Championships

Published15 October 2026

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe hopes holding the 2029 World Championships in Nairobi will create a "legacy" for Africa.

The Kenyan capital will become the first city on the continent to stage the event, having been awarded hosting rights last month ahead of London and Rome.

After the East African nation failed with a bid for the 2025 edition, Coe reiterated it was "the right time" for World Athletics to tread new ground.

"All our instincts - and certainly mine - was to have that opportunity to build our sport to an even higher level in the continent," Coe told BBC Focus on Africa.

"The legacy behind it is important because it's a hard legacy of a new facility, but it's also the softer legacy, the human capital that you build up, because it's really important that countries are able to deliver those championships and more championships going forward.

"That's the legacy of experience and expertise."

How Kenya won its bid for 2029 World Athletics Championships

• Published15 September

How Kenya won its bid for 2029 World Athletics Championships

Published15 September

It will be a big few years for Kenya, given the country will also co-host football's Africa Cup of Nations alongside neighbours Tanzania and Uganda in 2027.

The Kasarani Stadium is undergoing renovations ahead of next year's tournament, and will then also act as the venue for the 2029 World Championships.

Coe, who visited Kenya on Wednesday to meet the country's President William Ruto, says "a lot" needs to be done for the nation to be ready to welcome the globe's top athletes.

"I would be saying that at this stage to any host city that has been given the opportunity to deliver our sport," Coe added.

"The World Championships is hugely important to World Athletics. It accounts for over 90% of our revenues and those revenues are critical because it allows us to build our development programmes, our competition programmes, new formats, innovation, certainly to fund as well as we possibly can our member federations.

"A World Championships is complicated. There are 46 different disciplines, it's over nine days, 2,000 athletes, and you want the kind of operational integration that gives every opportunity for the athlete to perform as well as they possibly can.

"All our challenges, whether it's government, whether it's the local organising committee, whether it's the federation, whether it's World Athletics, our overall objective must be to provide the best possible environment for the athletes, and the fans will appreciate it as well."

Catching the 'fish' who dope

One other area Kenya can improve on is its record on doping.

Since 2017 over 140 of its athletes, predominantly distance runners, have been suspended by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU), the independent body which Coe helped set up when he was first elected World Athletics president in the same year.

Earlier this month Witold Banka, the president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, told the BBC that Kenya must demonstrate it can be a "clean" home of athletics if it is to retain credibility ahead of hosting the World Championships.

However, Coe is confident that Kenya is beginning to turn the corner.

"I am always worrying about all issues related to integrity in our sport," the former Olympic 1500m champion said.

"It wasn't that long ago that I persuaded [Kenya's] government to put even more [funding] in anti-doping programmes, and that's beginning to work.

"The challenge, of course, is the more tests you do, and the greater levels of funding, and the more sophisticated you become with the technology, the more you're probably going to catch.

"If you want to catch fish, you have to go fishing. And I think over the long haul, we will see that number starting to reduce.

"We've certainly seen it in track. There still remains some challenges in the road events."

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Africa Sport

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