Kasarani Stadium (© Michelle Sammet)
The World Athletics U20 Championships scheduled to be held in Nairobi, Kenya between 17-22 August will now begin one day later on Wednesday 18 August, finishing on Sunday 22 August.
The impact of Covid on teams travelling and logistics of moving vital equipment around the world have proven to be a challenge. However, the full athletics programme is able to be accommodated across five days rather than five-and-a-half days with minimal impact on the athletes attending from more than 100 countries.
The new schedule delivers a fuller and faster paced event and we are delighted that the broadcast rights for these championships have been taken up by more than 14 countries, with 12 of them showing the event live. For all other countries, World Athletics will be livestreaming the morning and evening sessions on its YouTube channel. Full details of how to watch the event will be issued in the coming days.
Over the past 18 months World Athletics has been determined to give athletes as many opportunities as possible to compete, despite the complex conditions the world still faces in fighting the pandemic. We would like to thank our athletes and their teams, our suppliers and the local organising committee in Kenya for accommodating this change and working collaboratively in challenging times to stage a great championships for these young, promising athletes as they begin their athletics journey.
The next four years offers unprecedented opportunities for these promising young athletes to move on to the senior World Championships and Olympic stages as we present World Athletics Championships in Oregon in 2022, Budapest in 2023, the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 and another World Athletics Championships in 2025 which will be awarded to a host city early next year.
World Athletics