The world’s best track and field athletes will gather at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon in March of 2016 to compete in the 16th IAAF World Indoor Championships. More than 600 athletes representing as many as 200 countries will participate in the biennial event.
This will be the first time the IAAF World Indoor Championships have been contested in the United States since the inaugural competition in Indianapolis in 1987. Athletes will compete in 13 men’s and women’s events over a three-day period, March 18-20, with medals awarded to the top three finishers in each event.
Team USA has been the most successful country at the IAAF World Indoor Championships with a total of 202 medals: 87 gold, 58 silver and 57 bronze. The U.S. will be looking to build on its strong performance at the 2014 meet in which it won eight gold medals, including Oregon Track Club Elite’s Ashton Eaton’s winning effort of 6,632 points in the heptathlon.
In terms of competitors, the biggest IAAF World Indoor Championships were held in Paris in 1997 with 712 athletes from 118 countries. The most countries represented were 171 at the 2012 meet in Istanbul, Turkey.
The facilities at the Oregon Convention Center will feature a new 200-meter IAAF-certified track. The 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships will be broadcast worldwide to an estimated audience of 140 million global viewers.