EUGENE, Ore. (KMTR) -- After the successful 2012 U.S. Olympic Team Track and Field Trials this summer, all eyes are now on the next major track event coming to Eugene which will feature an international audience.
Come July 2014, Hayward Field will host the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Junior Championships. The event will attract around 2,000 young aspiring professional athletes from more than 170 countries.
Eugene won the bid for the biennial event in November 2011. Crews are now in the planning process.
Delegates from the IAAF and the local organizing committee met in Eugene on Tuesday, November 13. So far, they’ve determined that the athletes will stay in the University of Oregon’s dorms, also called Residence Halls.
The World Junior Championships is a track meet for anyone under the age of nineteen. Most track professionals run in the event before the World Championships and the Olympics.
“These are individuals who will be ranked in the world top ten within a couple years of competing here in Eugene. So if people want to have a preview of what's coming down the pipe in the next Olympics and [the] one after, this is a good place to be,” says Abby Hoffman, an IAAF Councilor and former Olympian.
“We feel it's a great place to show off Hayward Field and to show off this community,” says Vin Lananna, President of the Local Organizing Committee for the 2014 IAAF Junior World Championships.
Some of the athletes who have run in past IAAF World Junior Championships include Usain Bolt, Ashton Eaton, Jesse Williams, Sally Kipyago and Andrew Wheating.
The meet is a six day event from July 22 to July 27, 2014. It will be the first time the event has ever been hosted in the USA. It started back in 1986.
