London bid to stage 2015 World Athletics Championships

LONDON has expressed interest in staging the 2015 World Athletics Championships - with the new Olympic Stadium in Stratford expected to be the centre piece of their bid.

CENTREPIECE: Could the London 2012 Olympic Stadium stage the World Athletics Championships three years later? (Getty Images)

The city will face opposition from Beijing, with the iconic 2008 Olympic Bird's Nest venue at the heart of their campaign, and the Polish city of Chorzow - already considered a major outsider. Daegu, in South Korea, will stage the 2011 edition of the event, followed by Moscow two years later.

International Association of Athletics Federations will make the decision about the host at their council meeting in November this year.

News of London's bid will throw further doubt on the future of the 2012 Olympic Stadium.

It was originally intended that the 80,000 seater venue would be converted into a 25,000 athletics stadium after the Games but that plan remains hugely contentious and unresolved while to stage the World Championships, a minimum capacity of 40,000 seats is required.

Several football clubs have expressed their desire to move in while the stadium is one of the proposed venues in England's 2018 World Cup bid, and has even be touted as a home of a proposed NFL franchise or even the England Twenty20 cricket team.

London 2012 chairman Lord Coe - who is tipped as a successor to IAAF president Lamine Diack - has made no secret of his belief London should campaign to stage what is billed as the world's third largest sporting event.

"It's not inconceivable that UK Athletics might look at 2015 and think it's an opportunity," he said, last year.

London was named as a host of the 2005 World Athletics Championships but controversially pulled out after the Government refused to underwrite a 43,000 capacity stadium at Pickett's Lock. 

Helsinki, host of the first World Athletics Championships in 2003, stepped in to stage the event at short notice.