World Athletics makes ‘strategic’ decision to award championships to India, Kazakhstan
President Sebastian Coe justified the choices for the global 3-day competition as an opportunity to ‘get more than a toehold’ in important markets
World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said Saturday that the decision to hold the next two world indoor championships in Asia was “strategic”, with both venues having come through tough evaluations.
The city of Bhubaneswar in Odisha state in eastern India will host the world indoors in 2028, while the Kazakh capital Astana was chosen for the 2030 edition.
Coe, speaking to reporters at the ongoing world indoors in Torun, Poland, justified the decision to move the global three-day competition to Asia as an opportunity to “get more than a toehold” in important markets.
“First of all, Asia is a very large continent and if you really want to define it, we’re talking from Qatar to the Philippines,” he said.
“So it’s not a one-size-fits-all. It's not sort of saying it’s like Europe, where in three hours, you’re basically almost out of Europe in most directions.”
Coe added: “Why those two? First of all, they threw their hats in the ring. Secondly, they went through a really tough set of evaluations.”