Posted: December 2, 2004

Athletics: Coming Home - Will the IAAF give the World Championships in 2009 to Berlin?

The IAAF was founded in 1913 in Berlin / Athletics has a great tradition in Berlin

On December 4, the IAAF will decide in Helsinki, the venue for the track and field world championships in 2005, where the championships are to take place in 2009.

The cities up for selection are Split, Valencia and once again Berlin. Berlin has already been unsuccessful in the selection process two times, but just like for the Olympic Games, one single attempt does not suffice to succeed, but what is rather needed is endurance, staying power, and a bit of luck.

Berlin has always been a sporting city, and athletics has a great tradition and success story in the past. The German Athletics Association was founded on January 29/30, 1898 in the restaurant “Patzenhofer“ in Friedrichstraße 71 on the corner of Taubenstraße, while the Berlin Athletics Association was created on November 15, 1904. But track and field sports were a part of Berlin life long before that.

The IAAF, the International Athletics Association, was also founded in Berlin, a fact that has remained fairly unknown. The International Athletics Congress met from August 21-23, 1913 in Berlin in the “Prussian Parliament“ (today the Berlin Parliament) and founded the IAAF, then called the “International Amateur Athletic Association“.

The first president was J.S. Edström from Sweden (see the enclosure with the invitation to Berlin with a photo of the board / Source: Sport Museum Berlin).

In the past, Berlin’s athletes have made their mark in track and field sports with great successes—winning 346 medals at the Olympic Games, World and European Championships, great sports festivals like the ISTAF, Olympic Day, and major races like the real,- BERLIN MARATHON or the Bewag BERLIN HALF MARATHON; and with world records that were set at these sports festivals—and on the streets of Berlin.

Berlin’s enthusiasm for athletics also has always been large, whether as spectators in a stadium or on the streets of Berlin, when hundreds of thousands loudly cheer on the runners. If the board of the IAAF decides on December 4th to give Berlin the privilege of hosting the Track and Field World Championships in Berlin in 2009, then analogue to the Olympic Games in Athens it would be no exaggeration to say: Welcome Home IAAF in Berlin!