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| April 2, 2006 | Sunday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 3, 1427 |
Australia wants to host world athletics
BRISBANE, April 1: The Australian state of Queensland has formally expressed interest in hosting the 2011 world athletics championships, the state’s premier said on Saturday.
Premier Peter Beattie said the 2000 Sydney Olympics and 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games had shown Australia’s geographic location was no obstacle to successful televising of events to the rest of the world.
Beattie said the track and field world championships were sport’s biggest event outside the Olympics and football World Cup and that they had never been held in the southern hemisphere.
The last time the world titles were staged in Asia was in Tokyo in 1991 and they will return to Japan next year when Osaka hosts the event.
“We are advised that the championships are likely to attract attendances of about 500,000 with nearly 3,000 athletes and officials and the same number of media representatives,” Beattie said.
He said the Queensland Sport and Athletics Centre, the main venue for the 1982 Commonwealth Games and 2001 Goodwill Games, would be the most likely venue to stage the event.
Athletics Australia has fully supported the Queensland bid for the world titles, which follows suggestions by Beattie last year for Australia’s third-largest city to host the 2024 Olympics.
It could be a few years before the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) decides where to stage the 2011 event as the venue for the 2009 world championships has yet to be chosen.—AFP
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