Midnight Marathon Scheduled for Revamped World Championships

(ATR) The 2019 Athletics World Championships will feature some innovative competition scheduling in a bid to capture young fans on television, and combat Qatar's heat.

IAAF president, Sebastien Coe, and the vice president of the Doha Local Committee, Dahlan Al Hamad, among others, revealed the changes during a press conference at the Qatari capital.

One of the big innovations for the next Athletics World Championships is that for the first time the marathon will be run overnight. The 26-mile (42-km) race will start at midnight on the second day of the competition in an attempt to capture more television audiences across the globe.

The marathon will have a course completely lit throughout the Doha Corniche, the city’s waterfront promenade, with the city's skyline as its background. Qatari organizers say they hope to apply in that race experience gained in hosting the world’s only night-time MotoGP competition.

"It is our ambition to organize an innovative, creative and exciting event that inspires and engages new fans, new athletes and new audiences and maximizes the full potential of our region’s first-ever IAAF World Championships," Al Hamad, said to journalists in Doha. "These will enable us to showcase the sport like never seen before, capturing the attention of young people in Qatar and around the world."

Also during Doha 2019, the schedule will have its morning sessions removed and the program will concentrate its events on evening competitions. One-hour intervals will be incorporated into each session to combine entertainment and family activities in and around the stadium, organizers said.

Other changes planned for the Doha World Championship in 2019 include the track events. For the first time in the history of the event there will be a 4x400m mixed relay.

"Finding ways to bring the emotion and appeal of athletics to the local community and the region has always been one of Doha’s ambitions," Sebastian Coe, IAAF President, said to journalists. "It is exciting to see the way the World Championships are being developed and adapted to the host country and region mixing world class competition"

Also the competition program in the Qatari capital will give special consideration to events traditionally obscured by others. Time-table slots will be allocated solely to semi-finals and finals of some field competitions without having to clash for fan attention with the track events.

"We are looking forward to seeing how these firsts and the engagement format will come together next year to deliver a World Championships that will look and feel different," Coe added.

The 2019 IAAF World Championship will be hosted at the Khalifa Stadium which,according to organizers, has been transformed into one of the most technologically advanced stadiums in the world.

The stadium was fully tested for the Emir Cup Final in 2017 and will be the site of the 2019 Doha Diamond League and the 2019 Asian Athletics Championships.

For the first time ever, the color chosen for the surface of the competition track will be pink in an attempt to match the look and feel of the event.

Qatar first hosted an IAAF Grand Prix in 1997, which later became the Doha Diamond League event. Doha also hosted the 2010 IAAF Indoor World Championships.

Written by Javier Monnein Doha

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