Toronto, Cardiff, Barcelona among bidders for 2018 WMA worlds
Athletics Weekly reported Saturday: “Britain is to bid to host the World Masters Track and Field Championships in Cardiff in 2018. British Masters Athletic Federation (BMAF) honorary secretary Bridget Cushen said Cardiff had been chosen after internal UK competition. Cardiff City, Welsh Athletics, Run4Wales and Cardiff University are all keen to help with the bid. … The tracks at Barry and Cardiff University track are also planned to be used and both are going to be upgraded. The university is also making over 5,000 hall of residence rooms available for the use of competitors from around the world.”
Cardiff International Sports Stadium would be the main Welsh venue.
AW continued:
Use of the National Indoor Athletics Centre in the capital for warm-up in inclement weather is also to feature in the bid.
The formal bid is now being put together but will face competition at the World Masters General Assembly in Lyon next August from at least three other cities. Gothenburg, Barcelona and Toronto have all stated an intention of bidding.
Great Britain last hosted the event in Gateshead in 1999 and the meeting attracted a fair bit of national media attention.
An attempt to utilise the Olympic Stadium at Stratford was also considered but Cushen said:
“The London bid did not actually materialise as no assurance of stadium availability was available. We were asked for further time but could not delay the selection as the closing date for completed applications is September 1.”
Toronto — site of the first WAVA world meet in 1975 — would be a great location and not fall victim to any anti-American feeling among delegates.
Barcelona would return the meet to Spain for the first time since San Sebastian in 2005.
Gothenburg was the Swedish site of the second WAVA world meet in 1977.
To review: 2011 worlds were Sacramento, 2013 Porto Alegre, 2015 Lyon (France) and 2016 Perth (Australia). So the Americas or Europe are due a meet in the world rotation.
At the risk of putting a thumb on the scales, since this site gets most traffic from North America, try this poll:
2 Responses
Barcelona is my first choice, site of the 1992 summer Olympics and in Spain, cannot go wrong with that!
I had hoped that Riccione, Italy would bid too!
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