Monaco: Five years after next summer's Olympics, athletics will revisit London for its showpiece World Championships after Friday's vote picked tradition and grassroot support over the wealth and technological promise of the Qatari capital Doha.

One hour after London matched Doha's pledge to pay for the $7.2 million (Dh26 million) in prize money, the International Association of Athletics Federation voted 16-10 to give the 2017 event to London and clinch an important part of its sought-after legacy from the Games.

The decision halted the momentum of the gas-rich state that had already secured the 2022 football World Cup and is also vying for the 2020 Olympics.

Picking between two valued but fundamentally different bids would always leave the sport as a loser, but IAAF chief Lamine Diack was happy to go back to the sport's roots and the city which hosted the 1908 Olympics.

Instead of an air-conditioned stadium with a 100-metre-wide television screen at the 40,000 Al Khalifa Stadium, the athletes will perform at the scaled-down 60,000 Olympic Stadium, which had once been threatened to have its track ripped out after the Games.

Clean sweep

And it will give Britain, the Olympics, the rugby and cricket World Cup, the Commonwealth Games and the world athletics championships in an amazing seven-year span.

"It's an extraordinary clean sweep," said London bid president Sebastian Coe.

In a competition that seemed undecided right up to the last hour, Doha first promised $39.2 million in "additional incentives" for the IAAF — including a major five-year sponsorship deal for the most prestigious events, payment of world championships prize money, picking up the bill for some of the sports centennial celebrations next year and the building of new stadiums around the world.

On top of the $200 million in investment for the championships themselves, it was a show of financial muscle that was also instrumental in bringing the 2022 World Cup to the country.

Anticipating such financial fireworks, London responded by also promising to provide the $7.2 million in prize money.

"We wanted to reveal it at the right moment," London bid chairman Ed Warner said.

After the votes were counted, he said it was "an important part of the process" to bring the championships to London. Later, he acknowledged that the prize money had already been counted in London's $85 million overall budget.

Whichever way, it was an important windfall for the IAAF which, when the world championships were started a quarter century ago had to pay organisers to support them instead of getting money.

After the success of Olympic ticket sales for athletics, Coe had no qualms about 2017. "The stadium will be stuffed to the gills with people who want to be there," Coe said.