City could bid to host 2024 athletics event
GLASGOW is considering a bid to host the World Indoor Athletics Championships in 2024. The Glasgow Events Board has approved the development of a feasibility study, following “the success of the European Athletics Indoor Championships”, which were held in the city in 2019.
It will make a recommendation later this year on whether Glasgow should launch a bid.
Details on the approved feasibility are included in a report by Dr Bridget McConnell, chief executive of Glasgow Life, which will be presented to councillors next week.
A spokesman for Glasgow Life said: “Hosting the World Indoor Athletics Championships in 2024 would build on Glasgow success in hosting the European Indoor
Athletics Championships in 2019, the European Championships in 2018, the Commonwealth Games in 2014 as well as UEFA’s Euro 2020 matches this summer and the UCI Cycling World Championships in 2023.”
The bidding process is set to start in March this year, with applications required to be submitted by October 1. A decision on the host city will be announced in December this year.
Held over three days, the World Athletics Indoor Championships see some of the world’s top athletes compete in shorter-form athletics, such as the 60m sprint and hurdles.
The event was last held in Birmingham in 2018, when Andrew Pozzi, in the 60 metre hurdles, and Katarina Johnson-Thompson, in the pentathlon, won gold medals for Great Britain.
Scotland’s Laura Muir, who won gold in both the 1500m and 3000m during the 2019 European Indoors at Glasgow’s Emirates Arena, took silver in the 1500m and bronze in the 3000m in Birmingham.
The next World Indoor Championships had been planned for March this year in Nanjing, China, after it was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.
However, it has been postponed again and will take place in 2023, following the 2022 competition in Belgrade, Serbia.
When World Athletics invited potential hosts to bid for three other events earlier this month, the body’s president Sebastian Coe said: “By partnering with World Athletics, a host city takes on a global spotlight, driving the elite profile of athletics both locally and internationally, and encouraging more active communities through legacy programmes that we can help our host cities to develop.”
Due to the ongoing pandemic, the British Athletic Indoor Championships, set to be held in Glasgow next month, was cancelled yesterday.
Athletics chiefs say measures to test those attending the event, due to be held in the East End’s Emirates Arena, would not “sufficiently mitigate the risks”.