Blessings of the Province (daily newspaper Junge Welt)

No other city in the US seems to have the same passion for track and field as the World Cup host city of Eugene, Oregon. Six years before the Olympic Games in Los Angeles, this is a problem for a sport that has produced top athletes from the USA again and again for decades, but can no longer market anyone there as a local superstar. Host the Super Bowl? Or an all-star game of the best NBA basketball players? The country’s metropolises are queuing up. But the World Championships in Athletics, which has never been held in the USA before? Get a university town in the province.

One was not necessarily spoiled for choice, said world association president Sebastian Coe Wall Street Journal. In order to get interest in the run-up to the 2028 Olympics to the hoped-for level – among the top five sports followed in the US – other venues are needed for future meetings. “If I’m being blunt, we need to go to the LAs, the Chicagos, the Miamis,” Coe said. So far, however, they have not been particularly interested in his sport, whose only venue for the Diamond League in the USA is also Eugene, and which, even at a very high college level, attracts fewer spectators than many a football game between two high school teams.

Hayward Field in Eugene is an important place among track and field athletes. In recent years it has become more and more synonymous with Team USA’s brutal Olympic elimination because of the high level. It was not until June that athletes secured their starting place for the World Championships, which began on Friday, at the national championships there.

Sporting goods giant Nike has its origins here and this is undoubtedly one of the main reasons why the World Cup is taking place there from 15th to 24th July in the first place. Defending long jump champion Malaika Mihambo on the last, record world champion Allyson Felix on the first and all other athletes on the eight days of competition in between will be cheered on by an expert audience. The stadium, which has been renovated and expanded for the World Cup, is designed entirely for the needs of athletics events.

However, the infrastructure for the many people involved in a major event is not at the level that previous host cities such as Doha, London and Beijing were able to offer thanks to their size alone. ‘It’ll be interesting to see how that goes. Especially when it’s very hot. Many of the accommodations do not have air conditioning. If there’s a heat wave, that’s going to be a real problem,” Dennis Shaver said dpa. As director at Louisiana State University, he is responsible for one of the best track and field programs in the country and has accompanied numerous Olympians on their way. He also criticized the fact that there is no 400-meter warm-up track right next to the stadium. The existing track is more of a square.

Shaver has no doubt that the youth system in the USA, which is closely intertwined with school and university, is the perfect path for talented people – but he has no doubt that Eugene is the best possible venue. ‘I’m not convinced at all, to be honest. I know they’ll do the best job they can,’ he said. But “there are a lot of things that will be a little different for people than at the World Championships that I’ve been to.”

The Organizing Committee of the World Cup, on the other hand, is of course once again convinced that great competitions have been organized for everyone involved. “You could certainly find places on a map that have more hotels. But can you find the necessary people, facilities, funding and experience for track and field competitions? We have this,” spokeswoman Jessica Gabriel said dpa. “These are the first World Championships on US soil. This is an opportunity we cannot afford to miss. In the run-up to the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, it is becoming increasingly important to bring athletics up in the USA.«

But when asked why this first World Cup is taking place in Eugene, Gabriel’s answer was: “Find someone else who is willing to host it.”