Daegu, Moscow selected to host world athletics championships
By The Associated Press
Posted Tuesday, 27 March, 2007
MOMBASA, Kenya -- The South Korean city of Daegu was awarded the 2011 World Athletics Championships on Tuesday, and Moscow will host the event in 2013.
Daegu defeated Moscow and Brisbane, Australia, for the 2011 worlds in a vote by the International Association of Athletics Federations.
Moscow then beat Brisbane and Barcelona, Spain, for the 2013 worlds.
The vote counts were not released.
The 2007 championships will be held in Osaka, Japan, and the 2009 event is in Berlin.
Barcelona sought only the 2013 championships, while Brisbane, Daegu and Moscow bid for 2011 and 2013.
Each delegation made a 40-minute presentation to the IAAF council, followed by a 20-minute question-and-answer session.
It's the first time the championships have gone to Korea or Russia. Daegu is South Korea's third largest city, with a population of 2.5 million.
"For a city with only an emerging athletics background and no committed commercial sponsors to be selected as the host of the world's third largest sports event ... is an extraordinary feat to achieve," Daegu bid chief Yoo Chong-ha said.
Daegu will be the third Asian city after Toyko (1991) and Osaka to stage the championships.
"We hope to surpass the standards of the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the FIFA World Cup (2002 co-hosted in Seoul)," Daegu Mayor Kim Bum Il Kim said.
The head of Moscow's bid committee, Valentine Basakhnichev, said the Russian capital was happy to win the second time around.
"It is a double emotion for us, having lost the 2011 bid and won the 2013," he said.
Ten world championships have been held since the event was inaugurated in Helsinki, Finland, in 1983. Originally held every four years, the track and field showcase is now a biennial event and is considered among the biggest global championships in world sports.
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