November 26: At the 212th IAAF Council Meeting hosted in Monaco, Nanjing won the bid to host the International Association of Athletics Federations World Indoor Championships (IAAF World Indoor Championships 2020). It will be the second IAAF mega-event to land in China following the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing. 

Representatives from the 3 candidate cities of Nanjing (CHN), Belgrade (SRB) and Torun (POL),  delivered their bid presentations, with famous athletes from each country playing key roles. China’s reigning world shot put champion Gong Lijiao was a member of the Nanjing delegation.

Nanjing, with a population of over 8m people, recently staged the 2014 Olympic Youth Games. As part of Nanjing’s sports development, a new stadium for the world indoor championships will be built in the Nanjing Youth Olympic Sports Park after which the stadium will be transformed into an athlete training center to sustain this legacy

“I look forward to celebrating the very best of world athletics in 2020 in Nanjing. The hosting of these championships will assist the development of an already established and growing culture of athletics in the country,” commented Sebastian Coe. 

Source: Sina 

Proofread by Raymond Fitzpatrick