2026 World Championships in Bahrain

United World Wrestling has announced that the 2026 World Championships will be in Bahrain as an interesting choice. It’ll be the first time an Arab country has hosted a World Championship.

Bahrain has recently invested in Wrestling highlighted by Akhmed Tazhudinov’s run to the Olympic Gold medal. I like the investment and it gives Wrestling a friendly country that travel and visa’s should not have problems with. It’s weird seeing empty seats while legendary matches are happening, but global political climates sometimes prevent us from seeing packed stands in New York, Miami, Tehran, Moscow, etc. I have to mention bringing back the World Cup every article I write and Bahrain could soon have a full team that can be competitive and travel anywhere. We know they have money.

Formula One hosts a race in Bahrain every year, and I have heard good things from the podcast I listen to. Travel, amenities and the whole experience is apparently near the top of the calendar that features 24 race weekends.

Any Arab country brings about women’s rights issues. Bahrain is not Iran where women are not allowed to attend sporting events or Saudi Arabia where the WWE women must be covered head to toe. However, it’s odd to award such an event to a country who has never entered a woman into competition and I’d be surprised to see any next year for obvious reasons.

Bahrain only sent six wrestlers to this year’s World Championships. They are all Russia born. Outside of the two swimmers (you can send anyone to swim at the Olympics and it results in a lot of funny memes) every Olympic athlete Bahrain sent was foreign born. They did send seven women in Track events though. They were from Kenya, Ethiopia and Nigeria. Maybe hosting will spur some local interest in the sport.

I understand growth and investments. We can’t just host in Tokyo, Chicago, and Moscow every year I suppose. However, there seem to be friendly areas of the globe that would likely fill the stands a lot better than what has been chosen since the 2016 Olympics that include: France, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Norway, Serbia, Serbia (after Russia was banned), and Croatia. I personally vote for Toronto or Windsor selfishly living in Michigan, but I do think those stands would fill.

Growing the sport is important, but I don’t think we need to sacrifice hosting events where people actually want to go and see it. Recently, it was announced the 2026 Pan Am’s will be at the Xtreme Arena in Coralville, Iowa. It’ll be strange to see people actually watching the Pan Am’s in the stands. Those thoughts should be a priority.