BEIJING (AP) — After nearly four decades of bypassing the United States, track and field’s marquee event is finally headed to the country that has been the dominant force in the sport.The small Oregon city of Eugene, a northwestern town steeped in American track history and the home of the University of Oregon, was awarded the 2021 world athletics championships on Thursday in a surprise move that came without a bidding process.The IAAF, the governing body of the sport, said the decision was driven by the desire to break into the key American market.“We have to give it to Eugene, to a city where athletics is like a religion,” IAAF president Lamine Diack said.Eugene has become a hotbed for track and field in recent decades, just as interest in the sport has waned. The city hosts an annual Diamond League meet, one of a series of top-tier IAAF track events, and staged the world junior championships last year. The 2016 world indoor championships will be held in nearby Portland.And it was a former University of Oregon runner and his track coach that started Nike in the early 1970s.