Doha is bidding against London, Budapest and an unnamed city from Spain to host the 2017 Championships but the Qatari capital looks to have stolen a march on their rivals with the ambitious plans for their key venue.

The 50,000 Khalifa International Stadium is part of the Doha Aspire Sports City complex and the premier athletics venue in the country.

The Stadium is set to host a World Cup semi-final and a number of group matches when Qatar stages the 2022 FIFA World Cup, and its reconfiguration will allow spectators to come closer to the football action without damaging the track.

The technology is similar to that featured at the Stade de France stadium in Paris where athletics and football are regularly staged together while the revamp to the venue in Doha will also see revolutionary air-cooling technology installed in order to counter the searing heat in the country.

Hassan Mubarak Esbaiss, a spokesperson for the Doha Aspire Sports City complex, told insidethegames: "The stadium revamp will be done at a huge cost but that is not a problem for us.

"Our concern is only how the sports venues look and feel when they are completed.

"For example, people do not come here and ask about the cost of the Aspire Academy; they are only interested in how good it looks.

"The plan is not yet finalised but we are looking to have retractable seating where the stands will cover the track for football matches and go back for athletics events.

"When we host football matches at the moment, we put grass over the athletics track but obviously the changes will be much better and bring fans closer to the action.

"The revamp will also see air cooling installed and the seating capacity increased, and it will all be done well before 2017 and ready in time if we win the bid to host the World Athletics Championships."

The move is rather ironic given that the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, the venue put forward for London's bid to host the 2017 Championships, does not have retractable seating despite many calls for the move.

Premiership outfit West Ham United are set to move into the Olympic Stadium following the London 2012 Games but fans have complained that they will be too far away from the action with the athletics track in place.

Retractable seating for the Olympic Stadium was considered too expensive for the Stratford venue in the current economic climate but money is not a problem for rising financial power Qatar.

London face additional problems in their 2017 bid with Tottenham Hotspur and Leyton Orient set to legally challenge the decision to award the stadium to West Ham.

The decision on where the 2017 Championships will be staged will be made in Monaco in November by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), and UK Athletics will be hoping that the legal dispute does not run up to November after uncertainty over the future of the stadium forced London to embarrassingly pull out of the 2015 World Athletics Championship bid at the end of last year.

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