Budapest could host the 2023 World Championship in Athletics

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has announced that, during their meeting in Buenos Aires, Budapest was suggested as the host for the outdoor 2023 World Championship in Athletics – reports index.hu.

Sebastian Coe, president of the IAAF, announced during the press conference closing the meeting in Buenos Aires that the association made up of 27 members supports the idea of Budapest and the Hungarian Athletics Association (MASZ) hosting the 2023 World Championship. Péter Deutsch, responsible for MASZ’s application to be host in 2023, said the following about the promising news: “We have to meet the high-level requirements introduced in the new application system of the IAAF so that the Hungarian Athletics Association can be officially announced in December as the host.

Until then, and, hopefully in the coming 5 years as well, our only goal is to ensure that we can host the best ever world championship.”

IAAF meeting
Photo: atletika.hu

Balázs Fürjes, the government commissioner responsible for international sports applications, said that it is an honour to receive positive feedback about the Hungarian application to be the host. He also said that

“We are on the right path and have reached an important milestone, however, we must not forget that there is still a long way to go until December. We have to work hard to ensure that Budapest will still be at the top in a few months.”

Márton Gyulai, manager of the application committee, revealed that IAAF is going to break the old habit of choosing the host from several different candidates. The reason for this is that, in the past, many cities were left disappointed, not to mention the amount of money some of them spent on convincing IAAF to choose them as the host, even if they did not have the knowledge and experience required for organising an event of such volume. According to Gyulai, who is also a member of the committee of the European Athletics Association,

“IAAF is now consciously looking for partners to work with who can help and manage the decision-making process so that the appropriate candidate can be chosen.”

It is nevertheless certain that, after the 2019 World Championship will be held in Qatar and Eugene in the US will be the host in 2021, the 2023 championship will find a host in Europe – fingers crossed it will be Hungary.

For more news, check out this article about the possibility of Hungary ever becoming a host of the Olympics.

Featured image: MTI/AP/Matt Dunham

Source: index.hu