Britain's bids to host the Championships have become a long-running embarrassment‎ with each attempt going up in flames.

A bid to host the 2003 Championships had to be shelved after plans to build an athletics track in the new national stadium at Wembley were abandoned.

London was then awarded the 2005 Championships after the then-Prime Minister Tony Blair personally promised that the Government would build a brand new stadium at Picketts Lock to stage them.

Blair then went back on that promise and the Government tried to move the event to Sheffield.

The IAAF, though, rejected the offer and instead awarded the event to Helsinki at the last minute.

The fall-out from the row was such that it nearly wrecked London's fledging bid to host the 2012 Olympics before Sebastian Coe almost single-handedly dragged it from the ashes.

The inspired fightback even managed to persuade IAAF President Lamine Diack to vote for them on the basis of there being an athletics legacy for London.

Meanwhile, the latest failure for the 2015 World Championships happened at the beginning of this month after the Government claimed it was unable to commit to backing it.

This was because a number of the tenders for the 2012 stadium - including Tottenham Hotspur's, which has been submitted in association with AEG - have plans to remove the running track and therefore any bid for the 2015 championships would have been subject to a legal dispute.

Beijing was awarded the 2015 event as the only bidder and Weiss admitted that Britain's consistent failures over past decade are sure to linger in the minds of the voters.

"Of course we were all very disappointed when London pulled out of the bid to host 2015 and I think our friends at UK Athletics were also very disappointed about that too," he said.

"It is the third time this has happened and now, in 2017, that will certainly be in the back of everyone's minds.

"People will wonder if London is really serious this time."

Weiss, however, did offer the London bid hope by suggesting it remains a strong contender to host the competition because of the stature of the city and its strong athletics background.

"The event will go to the city which puts forward the best technical bid as has always been the case in the past," he added.

"There is no doubt that London has the capacity to host a wonderful event in 2017.

"They have a great history in athletics and if they are serious about hosting the event this time, they will be very strong contenders to stage it.

"However, the past failures do not reflect very well on them and everyone knows that."

A decision on where the 2017 World Championships will be staged will be made by the IAAF in November next year.

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