Torun in Poland will host the 2026 World Athletics Indoor Championships, the World Athletics governing body has announced, while the 2024 Race Walking Team Championships will take place in Antalya, Turkey.

In making its announcement yesterday (March 22), World Athletics said Torun “is a well-known destination for leading international athletes …”

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This year's edition of the Indoor Championships, due to take place in Nanjing, China, was canceled due to “ongoing pandemic conditions,” the city to instead host the event in 2025. The next event in 2024 will be held in Glasgow, Scotland.

Henryk Olszewski, president of the Polish Athletic Association, said: “I am pleased that Poland has been awarded another great athletics event. I am convinced that the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Region will be an exemplary host, and in 2026 in Arena Torun, they will organize the best World Athletics Indoor Championships in history.”

Turkey, meanwhile, has previously hosted one World Athletics Series event – the 2012 Indoor Championships in Istanbul.

Fatih Cintimar, the Turkish Athletics Federation’s president, commented: “The fact that a World Athletics Championships will be hosted in Antalya is very important in terms of raising awareness of athletics in Turkey, gaining new athletics fans, and increasing the popularity of athletics. We hope to gain great momentum for our sport …”

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Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, added: “Both Turkey and Poland have established good records as hosts of international athletics events. Turkey most recently hosted the European Athletics Indoor Championships in Istanbul this month, despite the hardships created by the recent earthquake, while Poland is a regular host of World Athletics Series events …”

Earlier this week, World Athletics struck a six-year partnership renewal with international sports marketing agency Infront, which will continue to distribute international media rights to the top-tier Indoor Tour until 2029.

The deal extension builds on a three-year partnership that started in 2020.

Infront doubled the event's worldwide coverage last year to 70 territories after striking agreements with 22 broadcasters ahead of the 2022 edition, including SVT (Sweden), TVE (Spain), CMore (Finland), Match TV (Russia), ESPN, Direct TV, Flo Sports, and Flow Sports (North, Central, and South America), ORF (Austria), Arena (Balkans), Polsat Group (Poland), and Sky Italia (Italy).

Infront, which is owned by China’s Wanda Sports Group, already has a 10-year international media rights agreement for the World Athletics Continental Tour, the secondary outdoor series, and is set to take on the elite Wanda Diamond League, in a five-year deal starting in 2025.