The World Athletics (WA) World Under-20 Championships has been rescheduled for August next year in Nairobi, Kenya, and is set to start a week after the end of the Olympic Games in Tokyo, it was announced on Thursday.

A release coming out of the World Athletics Council meeting, which was held virtually, set dates for the 2021 track and field season where most of the events have been postponed from this year due to the effect of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The WA Council also announced “protected” dates for national championships for the next four years, allowing countries to plan their events without fear of date clashes with major meets where athletes could be contracted to compete.

Acknowledging that all the dates set were contingent on the status of the pandemic at the time of the championships, World Athletics president Sebastian Coe, said: “The disruption caused by the global pandemic has made it more difficult to schedule international events over the next two years, but we want to give as much certainty as we can to our athletes, member federations, host cities and partners. We have done our best to choose dates that we believe are achievable and offer the best chance for our athletes and event hosts to shine on the international stage.”

The World Under-20 Championships will be held later in the year than usual, and after normally being held in mid-July, the dates set for 2021 are August 17 to 22, one week after the Tokyo Olympic Games.

The World Under-20 Championships was originally set for July this year, but was one of the many international events that was postponed or cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

World Athletics also ruled that athletes who would have been in their final year of eligibility as juniors would not be eligible for the championships.

“Under the competition’s rules, athletes aged 16, 17, 18 or 19 years on December 31, 2021 will be eligible to compete,” the global body for athletics noted.

National championships will be held either June 5-6 or July 26-27 next year, World Athletics has ruled. In 2022 when the next World Championships will be held, the dates are June 25-26; in 2023 the dates will be July 8-9 or 29-30 and in 2024, the dates are June 8-9 or 29-30.