Minsk, the capital and largest city of Belarus, was today awarded the right to host the IAAF World Race Walking Team Championships 2020.

This will be the first occasion that Belarus has ever staged an IAAF World Athletics Series event.

Belarus is a Country of great traditions in race walking.

Just remember some of the most famous athletes: Valentina Tsybulskaya, Olga Kardopoltseva, Ryta Turova, Aleksandr Potashov, Yevgeniy Misyulya, Frants Kostyukevich and Viktor Ginko today the head coach of the Belarussian national team.

"I’m pleased that we are taking our world athletics series to another country for the first time which will help the development and profile of athletics," said Sebastian Coe. "The city centre course makes this an attractive event for spectators to follow and their plan to hold kids’ race walking and an extreme mass race for adults will assist the promotion by building a direct connection with the community.”

Vadim Devyatovskiy, president of the Belarusian athletics federation, commented: “We are very happy as this is our first experience with the IAAF (World Athletics Series) and we would like to integrate into the world athletics family. We hope that this event will be an important part of the history of athletics. We would like our youngsters, our teenagers and all other citizens of Belarus to take part in the (mass) race.”