Could Eugene Handle Track and Field's Crown Jewel?

Published by The Statesman Journal on November 3, 2014

Last week, a delegation from the IAAF — the governing body of international track and field — spent two days in Eugene doing their due diligence on TrackTown USA’s bid to host the 2019 World Track & Field Championships. A news conference was held before Lord Sebastian Coe and the rest of the IAAF Evaluation Commission left to visit Doha, Qatar, which has a competing bid for the event, as does Barcelona, Spain.

Barcelona, Doha, Eugene. Let that sink in a little bit. Can Oregon’s second-largest city, with just 159,000 inhabitants and a tiny airport, really compete with major cities around the world for an event that has been called the “crown jewel” of international track and field?

For more perspective, consider that the three World Championships that will precede the 2019 event will have been held in Moscow (2013), Beijing (2015), and London (2017), and that the Worlds have never been held on U.S. soil. No American city has even bid on the World Championships since Palo Alto failed to win the 2001 meet.

That the championships have never been held in the United States might be, however, one of the best things Eugene has going for it now. Raising the profile of track and field in this country would be a positive thing for the IAAF — possibly increasing corporate support here, increasing television viewership, and, perhaps, enhancing the sport’s waning popularity among the American public. After all, U.S. athletes have been dominant in the 14 World Championships since the competition began in 1983, winning a total of 300 medals, more than any other nation.