Paris, Jan 8 (IANS) The athletics' world governing body IAAF has announced that Rome and Bydgoszcz in Poland have been voted to host the two 2016 events Russia lost over doping.
Emerging from four candidate cities for the World Race Walking Team Championships, which were to be held in Cheboksary, Rome beat Ecuador's Guayaquil (4 votes), Kiev (4) and Monterrey in Mexico (2 votes) to win the bid by nine votes on Thursday, reports Xinhua.
The World Under-20 Championships, which were due to be in Kazan, went unanimously to the sole bidder Bydgoszcz after Australia and India expressed interest but did not submit bids.
The World Race Walking Team Championships will be staged in Rome on May 7-8 while Bydgoszcz will hold the World Junior Championships on July 19-24.
A total of 19 Council members took part in the two votes after an accelerated bidding process was opened on December 3 for the reallocation of the two IAAF World Athletics Series competitions following the full suspension of the Russian athletic federation ARAF.
By December 9, seven IAAF member federations had sent letters of interest, with five countries going on to formally submit bid applications.
IAAF president Sebastian Coe, who did not participate and will also not vote in any future host city decisions for the sake of neutrality as the head of the council, commented: "Many congratulations to Rome and Bydgoszcz. The speed in which you assembled detailed applications and at such short notice has been inspiring.”
