The Kenyan capital beat London to the bid, meaning athletics’ biggest global meet will be staged on African soil for the first time.
Nairobi will host the 2029 World Athletics Championships, becoming the first African city to stage the sport's biggest global competition.
The decision was taken at a meeting of the World Athletics Council in Budapest, Hungary. World Athletics is the international governing body for track and field events.
The Kenyan capital beat a rival bid from London.
What the World Athletics president said
Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, called Nairobi's bid "compelling and emotional".
"Taking the World Athletics Championships to Africa for the first time will be historic," Coe said. He added that the council was continuing its mission of growing athletics around the world, and that Nairobi had shown "emphatically that this is their moment".
London's bid and the venue question
The British bid was fronted by Athletic Ventures, a partnership made up of UK Athletics, London Marathon Events and the Great Run Company.
London offered the London Stadium, the home ground of Premier League club West Ham United, as its main venue. That stadium has a strong athletics record: it hosted track and field at the 2012 Olympic Games, the 2017 World Championships, and it stages the annual London Diamond League meeting.
Jack Buckner, chief executive of UK Athletics, said he was disappointed by the outcome but congratulated Nairobi.
Why Nairobi's case was strong
This was not Kenya's first attempt. Nairobi bid for the 2025 World Championships and lost to Tokyo.
Since then, the city's Kasarani Stadium has gone under renovation ahead of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON), the continental football tournament that Kenya is co-hosting. That upgrade work strengthened Kenya's case, as the country will already have modern facilities in place.
Kenya's record on the track also speaks for itself. At the 2025 World Championships, the country finished second on the medal table with seven gold medals and 11 medals in total.
What happens next
World Athletics also confirmed Munich, Germany, as host of the 2031 edition of the championships. Rome missed out on that one, just as London missed out on 2029.
What it means for Ghana and the diaspora
For Ghanaian athletics fans, a championships staged in Nairobi means a meet on the same continent, in a nearby time zone, and far cheaper to travel to than Tokyo, Budapest or Eugene.
For Ghanaians in the United States, it means live action in the morning rather than the middle of the night, depending on the schedule.
It also raises the stakes for African federations, including the Ghana Athletics Association, who now have four years to build teams worth sending to a home-continent world championships.
Reported first by Daily Guide Network on 2026-09-16. This article was written for our readers based on that report. Follow the link for the original coverage.
