The 2019 IAAF World Athletics Championship in Doha, Qatar was an experience many of who went have no regrets.
The whole hoopla and criticism of putting the event in the Middle East were misplaced, I believe. You hear about the heat, the lateness of the meet, the unfilled stadium, and how corruption is the reason for bringing the event there. I believe a lot of the criticism is all about ignorance, bias and or hypocrisy.
When the event is kept in cold areas, we hear no complaint. Yet there is a problem with the heat because it affects athlete from certain countries disproportionately. One championship had athletes going through vomiting spell and these critics remain silent. As for the late part of the year, I have seen Australia twice host the Olympics. In 1956 it was November 22 through December 8. In 2000 it was held September 15 to October 1. To date, I have never heard of the critics mentioned the lateness of the game as an issue. Are we to believe that if Australia put in an excellent bid for the world championship, they should be automatically be disqualified because of the time of the year?
The question of the unfilled stadium is easily explained, but of course, the critics could care less. The stadium-filling issue has more to do with the geopolitical situation than anything else. The Saudi Arabia block is blockading Qatar because of Qatar refusal to muzzle Al Jazeera coverage of the Yemen civil war. Then to make a bad situation worse, the bombing of the Saudi oil plant led to Iran being accused. President Trump responded with a tweet stating loaded, lock and ready to attack Iran. The response coming out of Iran did not make things better. Many cancelled their plans to go to Qatar. Can we blame Qatar or the IAAF for this?
As for corruption being the reason for Qatar winning the bid to host the event, I wonder what happens when competing forces seek to host the event. If memory serves me right, the voters are usually hosted by the country trying to win the bid. Are we to believe all these host countries in the past only showed their facilities and infrastructure? I do not know, but if Qatar offered the IAAF significantly more money than the other bidders. If they did, I see nothing wrong with that. The sports need more money to entice talents to stick with athletics instead of other sports.
Certain countries may feel it is their right of first refusal, so they use the media to justify their anger. Moreover, athletics is not a growing sport in many of the past host countries.
My experience in Qatar was wonderful. For the first time, I experienced the air-conditioned stadium. The place was clean with excellent modern architecture in their construction and most of all, great all-round performances at the game. I wonder why the critics did not focus on the many great performances. The men shot putt, women 400m and 400mh, men pole vault to mention a few.
I hope the next host live up to or better the standard of Doha, Qatar.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author (Robert Taylor) and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, trackalerts.com.
