Nairobi just made history. If the United States wants to lead this sport instead of merely dominating its medal count, USATF needs to stop borrowing stadiums and start building one. In September, World Athletics awarded the 2029 World Championships to Nairobi, Kenya — beating out bids from London, Munich, and Rome and sending the sport’s flagship event to Africa for the first time in its history. President Sebastian Coe called it a “compelling and emotional bid,” and he’s right to. Kenya is second only to the United States on the all-time World Championships medal table, and this is a well-earned, overdue moment for the continent that produces so much of…

World Athletics has announced that Nairobi, Kenya, will host the 2029 World Athletics Championships — the first time in the sport’s history that its flagship outdoor event will be held on African soil. The decision came from the World Athletics Council, which also awarded the 2031 championships to Munich, setting a rotation that carries the sport’s biggest meet through Asia, Africa, and Europe over three consecutive editions. It is hard to overstate what this corrects. Since the championships began in Helsinki in 1983, the event has traveled through Europe, Asia, and North America without once setting foot on the continent that has done more than any other to define distance…

–The inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship proved that track and field can create a high-paying, high-profile season finale capable of attracting enormous attention. The $10 million purse, $150,000 individual prizes, and concentration of elite talent represented a meaningful commercial step forward. But the event also exposed a troubling contradiction. World Athletics wants to modernize the sport, yet it did so by creating a selective showcase that excluded several major disciplines, competed for calendar space with other promoters, and used the word “championship” for what was essentially an invitation-based event. A Matter of Nomenclature: Championship v Invitational   Words matter in global sport. World Athletics has elected to brand this competition…