Kenya's President William Ruto says the World Athletics Championship will be "coming home", with Nairobi set to make history after being selected as the first African city to host the event in 2029. Ruto hailed the winning bid as a "victory for generations of athletes" who have made the nation "synonymous with excellence" on the track and road. Nairobi beat London and Rome to the hosting rights, with Munich selected to stage the 2031 edition.

When World Athletics president Lord Coe announced the decision in Budapest on Tuesday, he described Kenya's bid as "compelling and emotional". The East African nation is the second-most successful nation in the history of the World Championships with 72 gold medals, placing it behind the United States. Lord Coe said that athletics is "woven into the fabric" of the nation and that Kenyans have helped "shape the history" of the sport.

Kenya's previous bid for the 2025 edition fell down largely on the facilities which the country possessed. This time around, the Kasarani Stadium will have gone through a complete structural upgrade well before the world's top athletes descend on Nairobi. The 48,000-capacity venue will be used when Kenya co-hosts football's 2027 Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) next June and July alongside Tanzania and Uganda.

"We learned from the 2025 bid because there were areas that we did not score well," Barnaba Korir, who worked on the successful bid, told the BBC World Service. "Because of that, we managed to improve on those areas."