Host city | London, United Kingdom | ||
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Dates | 4–13 August | ||
Main venue | London Stadium | ||
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The 2017 IAAF World Championships was the 16th edition of the global athletics competition organised by the International Association of Athletics Federations and was held in London from 4 to 13 August 2017. London was officially awarded the championships on 11 November 2011.
When the seeking deadline passed on 1 September 2011, two candidate cities (London and Doha) had confirmed their candidatures. Barcelona, which investigated a bid, withdrew citing a lack of support from the local population and financial difficulties.
On 5 September 2011, Doha launched its marketing bid for the 2017 World Championships. The slogan of the bid was "The RIGHT PARTNER for a stronger World Championships." The bid was led by Abdullah Al Zaini and Aphrodite Moschoudi. Moschoudi successfully led Qatar's bid for the 2015 Handball World Championships. Doha also brought in Brian Roe, a member of the IAAF Technical Committee. The bid was for the championships to be held in the renovated, climate-controlled Khalifa Stadium. The Corniche promenade was to hold the road races, with the committee proposing to hold the marathon at night after the opening ceremony.
On 6 September 2011, London unveiled its bid for the 2017 championships with the slogan "Ready to break records." This was London's fourth bid in less than 15 years to host the event. The London bid team said that if their bid was successful they would introduce the "Women in World Athletics" programme.
The IAAF Evaluation Commission visited London on 2−4 October and Doha on 4−6 October. On 11 November 2011, the winner was officially announced as London.
The championships were held in the London Stadium in Stratford, London, which hosted the 2012 Summer Olympics, and has a capacity of 60,000.
Six days before the events were due to begin, it was reported that more than 660,000 tickets had been sold, which was a new record for the World Championships, surpassing the previous record of 417,156 tickets sold for Berlin 2009.