Athletics Federation of India (AFI) and its president, Adille Sumariwalla have achieved a coup of sorts by bringing a World Athletics (previously IAAF) event to India after a gap of 20 years.
India last hosted an IAAF event in 2004- the World Half-marathon Championships in Delhi. Since then, India has hosted the Commonwealth Games in 2010.
However, we have to concede that the standard of athletics stadia across India has taken a nose-dive. Everywhere except Odisha.
So, it is only fair that the Kalinga stadium in Bhubaneswar will be hosting a World Athletics continental tour bronze-level meeting in August, 2025.
This single-day track and field meet will be held just a month before the World Athletics Championships in Tokyo and will be a golden opportunity for our athletes to gain ranking points to qualify for the world championships.
Bhubaneswar was also the Indian city to host the last major athletics competition, with the Asian Athletics Championships in 2017.
India also hosted the 2013 Asian Championships at the Balewadi Sports Complex in Pune.
The Senior National Federation Cup, scheduled from April 21 to 24 in Haryana, will act as a qualification event for the Asian Athletic Championships to be held in the Republic of Korea in May.
India’s 2025 domestic season will start with the national cross-country championships on January 12 in Uttar Pradesh.
World Athletics continental tour has been held since 2020 and it is classified a rung below the diamond league events. They are further classified into 4 tiers- gold, silver, bronze and challenger.
One might be wondering why India has not had many events of this level until now. Let us outline the requirements to host such an event
Hope administrators in other states are also looking at how Odisha is managing to promote sports beyond cricket and emulate it.
