The bid will be led by the Premier of Queensland, Peter Beattie, who arrives there following meetings with President Mbeki in South Africa.

 

He is accompanied by the Lord Mayor of Brisbane,Campbell Newman, bid committee chairman Des Power, president of Athletics Australia, Rob Fildes and Bill Bailey, IAAF Council Member for Oceania, all of whom will be part of the presentation team on Tuesday.

Australia’s long and impressive history in athletics is also well represented in Kenya.

 

The legendary, unbeaten 1,500 metre and mile runner and Olympic gold medalist Herb Elliott represents the golden era of 1950’s and 1960’s Australian greats and is joined by the great Australian marathon runner and world record holder in the 1980’s, Robert de Castella and the current IAAF 3,000 metres World Cup gold medalist and 5,000m World Championships bronze medalist, Craig Mottram.

 

“The support for Brisbane’s bid has been truly impressive amongst the athletics loving Australian public and of course amongst our great former champions in the sport," said Power.

 

"Sadly, we could not bring them all here to Mombasa.

“We could have filled a 747 with some of the great names of Australian Athletics, like Cathy Freeman, Ron Clarke, John Landy, Raelene Boyle, Jana Pittman, Dimitri Markov, to name just a few.

“However, we have respected the IAAF’s directive to limit our delegation and our team of consummate professionals and dedicated supporters here in Mombasa are determined to demonstrate to the IAAF Council the impact that a World Championships in Australia would have on the sport of athletics for decades to come.

“Should we be awarded the honour to host these great championships in either 2011 or 2013, we would put on the greatest athletics meeting ever seen, with capacity crowds at every session and a spectacular party atmosphere in our beautiful city. What we did for the Olympic Games in Sydney we will do for the World Championships in Brisbane."

Brisbane is competing against Daegu and Moscow.