India to host 2028 world indoor athletics champs – Coe

The eastern Indian state of Odisha will host the world indoor championships in 2028, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe announced Thursday.

“The World Athletics Council this morning awarded the next two editions of the event, the world indoor championships, to Odisha in India in 2028 and Astana, Kazakhstan, in 2030,” Coe said ahead of the world indoors in Torun, Poland.

“The future of the world indoor athletics championships is looking bright and assured.”

The selection of Odisha, formerly known as Orissa, is the first time the world’s most populous nation has hosted a major World Athletics event.

The city of Bhubaneswar in Odisha is home to the Kalinga Stadium Complex which boasts an indoor stadium.

Amdavad, the city also known as Ahmedabad — in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat — has been confirmed as host city for the 2030 Commonwealth Games, which will feature a full track and field programme.

That is widely viewed as a stepping stone to bidding to host the 2036 Olympics, and erasing memories of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi — an event marked by construction delays, substandard infrastructure and accusations of corruption.

When Amdavad was confirmed for the Commonwealths, Coe said at the time that India was “already expressing interest in hosting major global athletics events, and the long-term aspiration to host a World Athletics Championships -– and one day the Olympic Games”.

Coe said it was a “powerful sign of a nation thinking boldly about its sporting future”.