Qatar wins bid to host 2019 World Championships in Athletics

Doha was chosen on Tuesday to host the 2019 World Athletics Championships as Qatar’s latest triumph thrust the Middle East nation, with its massive wealth and boundless ambition to be a sporting super-power, once more back into the spotlight.

Less than a week after the controversy over Qatar’s selection to stage football’s World Cup in 2022 was reignited, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) was not put off by potential criticism as it voted for the Qatari capital to stage another of global sport’s showpiece events.

At its meeting in Monaco, the IAAF Council plumped for Doha ahead of two powerful, older school candidates, former Olympic hosts Barcelona and Eugene, the Nike-backed home of athletics in the United States.

Doha’s victory, after losing to London in the 2017 bidding race, again underlined the ever-growing pulling power of Qatar’s petrodollar-fuelled masterplan to be a major, credible force in the sporting mainstream.

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Qatar wins bid to host 2019 World Championships in Athletics