The 2026 IWF World Championships Will Be Held In Ningbo, China

The 2026 IWF World Championships will be hosted by the city of Ningbo, China, which was decided yesterday in an IWF Executive Board meeting in Doha, Qatar. This IWF showcase will follow two other World Championships – the one to be held next year in Manama, Bahrein, and the one to be held in 2025 in Forde, Norway.

Even though it’s not one of the most popular cities in China, Ningo is located relatively close to Shanghai and Hangzhou, in the northeastern part of the country. Its population is a little over 9 million, and it has had recent experience staging international sporting competitions.

The 2026 World Championships will be held in the impressive Ningbo Olympic Sports Center, which was built in 2019 and has a capacity for over 10,000 spectators.

During yesterday’s Executive Board meeting, the IWF awarded two other important competitions that are set to be held in 2025: the IWF World Junior Championships, which will be hosted by Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and the IWF World Youth Championships, which will happen in the capital of Lima, Peru. 

Finally, along with the allocation of all these important events, the IWF also approved the provisional budget of the federation for next year, along with the revalidation of the IWF Refugee Team program.

The board also decided to establish a Weightlifting World Day that will be celebrated every year on the 16th of October – the date when the IOC decided to reinstate the sport back into the program of the Los Angeles Olympics Games in 2028.