Besides Doha, who announced yesterday that they were bidding, it has also been revealed that Budapest and an unnamed city from Spain had put themselves forward before the deadline for national federations to send a letter of intent. 

The IAAF will now plan study the four bids and announce a short-list on September 1 before choosing a candidate at a meeting of its ruling Council in Monte Carlo in November.

Budapest successfuly held the 1998 European Championships while Seville in Spain hosted the 1995 World Championships. 

But it is expected that this time they will put forward either Madrid or Barcelona, the 1992 Olympic host city who held last year's European Championships. 

London will be confident, however, of bringing the event to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford despite being thwarted in three previous attempts to host the biennial event through political circumstances.

Attempts in 2003 and 2005 were undermined by failure to complete the new Wembley Stadium on time with an athletics option or go ahead with a planned new stadium in Picketts Lock, North London, as then Prime Minister Tony Blair had promised the IAAF.

The planned bid for the 2015 World Championships also fell flat after it was deferred by the Government last year because of a lack of guarantees over the future of the Olympic Stadium but for 2017, UK Athletics is working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Mayor of London, UK Sport and other agencies to develop the bid and its supporting budget and with a seemingly more structured bid in place, UK Athletics Chairman Ed Warner is confident London can win the right to host the competition.

"The World Athletics Championships is the greatest sporting event never staged in the UK and we are committed to changing that," Warner said.

"Athletics is a hugely popular sport in this country and I'm confident we can stage an outstanding championships in front of a sell-out, knowledgeable crowd.

"Athletics is a truly global sport with more than 200 countries competing in the World Championships.

"London is a perfect partner for this event with 270 nations represented by its seven million citizens.

"Every athlete from every country will be supported.

"We are a leading host for major sporting events and we have the experience and expertise to deliver a World Athletics Championships that will make the IAAF proud."


The World Athletics Championships is the biggest event on the IAAF Calendar and the last edition in Berlin in 2009 saw 2000 athletes from 200 territories represented with 10,500 officials and volunteers present and more than £4.3 million ($7 million) in prize money awarded.

Berlin 2009 was watched by a cumulative global TV audience of 8 billion people.

In the host country Germany, the event attracted a cumulative audience of 70 million people over 46 hours of coverage, while worldwide, TV viewers from 201 territories tuned in.

Berlin were among the list of cities who the IAAF said had sent a letter of intent for the 2017 edition of the Championships but it later emerged that this was only a preliminary enquiry and they did not plan to take their bid forward.

The next three editions of the IAAF World Championships will be held in Daegu in Korea later this year, in Moscow in Russia in 2013 and Beijing in China in 2015.

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