Next week’s IAAF World Under 20 Championships in Bydgoszcz, Poland, could be one of the largest of its kind ever held and also the largest athletics event ever held in Poland, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) announced yesterday.

A total of 1,518 athletes (832 men and 686 women), including 39 from Jamaica, have been entered for the event to be held at the Zawiszaw Stadium, July 19-24, the second-largest number of athletes for “a World U20 Championships to date, bettered only by the 2012 edition in Barcelona, Spain, where 1,566 athletes participated”, an IAAF release said yesterday.

This year’s figure would surpass the number that took part when the event was held eight years ago in Bydgoszcz, making it the biggest athletics championships ever held in Poland.

At least 160 IAAF member federations have confirmed their participation in these championships; the most attended edition was in 2006 when 176 countries gathered in Beijing, China.

The Jamaican team is due to leave the island tomorrow for the championships that is set to get underway at 2:30 am next Tuesday morning (Jamaica time).

— Paul Reid