Athletics South Africa to bid for World Half-Marathon Championships

This was confirmed to SABC Sport by ASA president James Moloi, who further outlined the federation’s plans to host the championships for the first time on South African soil.

Should the bid for 2025 fail, Moloi confirms that 2027 is also an option.

"We have prepared an [bid] application for the World Championship because it's long overdue now – we want the world half-marathons to be staged in South Africa," Moloi told the public broadcaster's sports desk.

"We have approached the Eastern Province, which is EPA, to use that course as the 21 kilometre course that they ran because it's a flat course.

"So we are now preparing the documentation for World Athletics, and then I'll be the person that we are going to bid for that one – we want to bid for 2025, but if we fail then it will be 2027.

"But I'll make it a point that we influence some of these decision-makers to give it to us because it will be a privilege and be a marquee for South Africans to hold that one.

"We've never had a World Championships in South Africa, and it would be the first time, but we'll do our level best to convince those decision-makers to give it to us."