There was no David Beckham, no double-decker bus and no flag-waving Boris Johnson, but the handover of the IAAF flag to London, venue of the next World Athletics Championships, could be the start of the next big stage of securing a legacy for the sport after the London Olympics.
London will follow Beijing as host of the world championships as it had followed the Chinese capital as host of the Olympics. After disappointing championships in Daegu, South Korea, in 2011 and Moscow in 2013, Beijing again put on a fine show. London, though, will be the best world championships in history, according to Niels de Vos, the chief executive of London 2017.
“We have got the best facility in the world, we know we have the best volunteers and the best officials in the world,” De Vos said. “Everything is in place to do the best ever championships.
“Big events are what this country thrives on; 2017 will drive massive interest not only in years leading up to it, but in the years after it.”
There was little of the glitz and glamour of the 2008 Olympics at yesterday’s closing ceremony. There were lots of flags, some loud music and some very cute kids as accompaniment to some dry speeches and the flag handover.
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It was, however, hugely significant. It will be the first time the world or European championships have been staged in Britain.
Roll call for Olympic Stadium
• London 2017 will be the biggest event to be staged in the Olympic Stadium since the Olympic and Paralympic Games three years ago — with 3,300 athletes from more than 200 nations competing over the 17 days.
• London 2017 is a world first — with the IAAF and IPC World Championships being staged in the same city in the same summer.
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• The Para Athletics World Championships will be held from July 15-23 and the IAAF World Championships will take place from August 5-13 at the Olympic Stadium.
• Tickets will go on sale next summer to coincide with the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games in August. To register for ticket updates, sign up to the website on london2017athletics.com
• People wishing to volunteer to help at London 2017 will be able to sign up from later this year.
Words by Ron Lewis
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“Before we never had the stadium,” De Vos said. “World championships require a stadium with a minimum capacity of 30,000 and we didn’t have that. The biggest athletics stadium in the country was Crystal Palace at 12,500. Even with temporary seating that would probably just go up to 16,000.
“Now we have got a worlds and we are pretty confident we will get a Europeans in the future and are probably going to bid for 2022.”
De Vos believes that securing athletics at the Olympic Stadium every summer for the next 50 years can ensure that the sport will remain in the mainstream for that period of time and that winning the right to stage the World Championships in two years’ time was crucial to that.
“Securing the track in the stadium was always promised, but it was by no means certain,” De Vos said. “Having a clear use for it post-Games was always important. It enabled us to then think about the Anniversary Games, which is arguably the biggest two-day athletics meet in the world and it secured the status of the sport.
“We knew that athletics is the biggest Olympic and Paralympic sport and we knew we would get a huge upsurge of interest and passion and numbers of people wanting to watch it. This was the chance to do it all over again, the Olympics and Paralympics coming to London again five years after, and I think it will have the same warm embrace from the British public.”
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The world championships will be from August 5-13 with the IPC World Championships, for Paralympic classes, taking place from July 15-23. In the two-week gap between the events, De Vos hopes to organise a series of events that will give as many people as possible the chance to compete on the track.
“We are talking about having the first ever British Schools Championships in the stadium between the two events,” he said. “There will be mass runs going in and out of the stadium. It will be a month-long festival of athletics.”
One of the benefits of a championships on home soil is the boost it gives to those who want to compete.
“You look at some of the kids who have done well in recent times, Dina Asher-Smith, Sophie Hitchon, 2012 came too early for them,” De Vos said. “But 2017 gives them a real chance to have a home games and [events like this] kept a lot of talented kids in the sport dreaming of a home gold medal.”
By making the stadium a focal point of athletics, De Vos is also hopeful that the live audience for the sport will remain strong.
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“These things happen in stages,” he said. “London 2012 brought a whole new audience to athletics and many have stayed with us.
“Our numbers of people watching live athletics in the UK is way higher than it ever has been before. That’s partly a function of the stadium, because you can put more people in, but they still have to want to come. We had more than 100,000 at the Anniversary Games. No country in the world could match that.
“Athletics has a very unique place in the British psyche and we will build on that at the 2016 Anniversary Games. We have got to build the audience, we need to be a major sport.”