London will bid to host the European Athletics Championships in 2022

EXCLUSIVE
Jan Kruger/Getty Images

London is bidding to host the European Athletics Championships in 2022 for what would be the first time the UK has staged the event.

The World Championships are being held at the London Stadium in August, with Birmingham lined up to host the World Indoors in 2018 and Glasgow welcoming the European Indoors a year later.

But UK Athletics, who are keen to stage more events and further utilise the former Olympic Stadium, have opened talks about the 2022 Europeans.

One stumbling block is that, starting next year, the athletics championships are set to be tied to the European Sports Championships and there is not quite the same appetite to host sports such as swimming, cycling and gymnastics.

But that does not necessarily negate London’s chances. The inaugural European Sports Championships will be in Glasgow, while the athletics will take place some 1,000 miles away in Berlin.

European Athletics president Svein Arne Hansen confirmed talks had already begun with UKA.

He said: “We are already talking. [IAAF president] Seb Coe has said that he is changing the bidding system for the World Championships. We have to have a more clever bidding system or no bidding. And we have to go to the cities and ask, ‘Can you do it?’”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in