London bids to host 2017 Paralympic World Championships

London has bid to host the Paralympic Athletics World Championship in 2017.

Mayor Boris Johnson submitted the bid which would see the Olympic Stadium host the event just a month before the World Athletics Championships.

If the bid is succesful, it will be the first time a city has hosted the two championships in the same year.

The bid came as UK Sport announced a campaign to create an Olympic legacy by bringing 36 World and European championships to the United Kingdom.

The Gold Event Series will use £27m of lottery money over the next six years and aims to bring a total of more than 70 sporting events to the UK.

Among the events being targeted are the semi-finals and final of football's European Championships in 2020 and the Hockey World Cup.

Johnson, who is also chairman of the London Legacy Development Corporation, said: "The huge appetite for tickets to the 2012 Games this summer shows the level of excitement Paralympic sport can generate, and forever changed the way we think about disabled sport.

"The 2017 IPC World Championships present a fantastic opportunity for us to build on that phenomenal surge of enthusiasm and welcome back some of the world's greatest sportsmen and women to the Olympic Stadium.

"Securing the championships would not only reinforce London's reputation as the world's leading sporting city, it would bring a vital multi-million pound boost to the capital's economy, creating jobs and driving growth in east London."

Bids are also in place for the 2016 Track Cycling World Championships and European Swimming Championships.

The Diving World Series, the World Triathlon Series, the World Figure Skating Championships and the Track Cycling World Cup are also being targeted as part of the campaign, which has been launched as a partnership between UK Sport and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

UK Sport said that 15 of the 70 events being lined up have already been confirmed.

Sports Minister Hugh Robertson did, however, rule out any thoughts of bidding again for the football World Cup after the failure of England's 2018 bid.

He said: "All those of us who went through that experience are scarred as a result of it.

"I still don't understand how you can put together a technical bid that was judged so far in front of anyone else's and still only get one vote apart from your own."

Simon Morton, UK Sport's director of major events and international relations, said "several British cities" could bid for the Commonwealth Games in the 2020s.

He also revealed that the £269m Olympics Aquatics centre would not be able to host the world swimming championships because 15,000 of the 17,500 seats are to be removed to make a much smaller venue.

Morton said that as a result, the European Championships was the largest swimming event that the aquatics centre could bid for.

Liz Nicholl, UK Sport chief executive, said: "In developing the Gold Event Series, UK Sport is building on the success of London 2012 and supporting the UK's ongoing legacy goals.

"The continued hosting of world-class events supports our athletes' performance ambitions, provides a unique platform to inspire participation and allows sport to contribute towards the economic growth agenda."