The World Indoor Championships are coming to America for the first time since 1987.
The IAAF, track and field’s governing body, awarded the 2016 World Championships to Portland, Ore., on Friday. Portland beat out Birmingham, England, which will receive the 2018 World Championships.
Organizers will build a temporary track at the Oregon Convention Center for the three-day meet in March 2016. Indianapolis hosted the 1987 World Indoor Championships. The U.S. has never hosted a World Outdoor Championships.
It will be the first time the U.S. will host a World Championships in one of its three biggest individual summer Olympic sports -- artistic gymnastics, swimming, track and field -- since the 2003 World Gymnastics Championships.
Portland is about a two-hour drive north from Eugene, which has hosted the last two U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials and will host the 2014 World Junior Championships and the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials.
@AshtonJEaton will welcome the @iaaforg federations to his home in 2016 for the world indoors! pic.twitter.com/CcC3YlHHpS
— TrackTown USA (@TrackTownUSA) November 15, 2013
IAAF said bids by Portland and Birmingham were both so strong they both deserved to be a host city for World Indoors.
— Simon Hart (@SiHart) November 15, 2013
