Gov. Kate Brown and a team of her closest advisers are headed to the world track and field championships that begin on Friday in Doha, Qatar, where the governor will participate in ceremonies as the host of the next championships in 2021.

The Qatar trip will allow Brown and her team to “better understand the logistics of putting on such a major event,” raise awareness that Oregon is set to host the next competition and figure out “how to maximize the event economically for the state,” Brown’s spokeswoman Kate Kondayen wrote in an email.

It appears that Brown is getting into the spirit even before the Doha competition begins. She has reassured officials of the sport’s international governing body that she will find an additional $20 million in state support for the Eugene World Championships. The state has already pledged $20 million, raised by an increase in hotel room taxes and grants from the state’s tourism agency.

The International Athletic Associations Federation unexpectedly awarded its biggest event to Eugene in 2015. It was a stunning achievement for Eugene, the first U.S. city and likely the smallest ever to host the event. The city’s reputation as one of the nation’s hotbeds of track and field resonated with IAAF officials, they said later.

But organizers said they need another $20 million from the state, on top of the $20 million already pledged, to make the event happen. To fill that $20 million gap, Brown vowed in an April 25, 2019 letter to the IAAF to come up with the money.

Brown said she intends to take $1 million from her strategic reserve fund and hit up state agencies, regional tourism organizations and local governments.

“Finally, I will work to pass legislation to provide additional funding,” Brown wrote.

In addition, Kondayen said the governor is working to line up private money for the event. “Oregon is committed to ensuring a successful world championship event, and we are working with Travel Oregon, Oregon 21, and legislators to identify outstanding needs" and make sure they are funded by March 2020, Kondayen said.

Brown is taking four of her own staffers with her to Qatar — Chief of Staff Nik Blosser, Deputy Chief of Staff Gina Zejdlik, Senior Adviser and Communications Director Chris Pair and Interim Regional Solutions Director Brendan Finn — plus two state troopers tasked with protecting the governor.

The governor’s office did not know the total cost of the trip as of Tuesday, but Kondayen said the state is paying travel costs for Brown and her team. Oregon 21, a subsidiary of the nonprofit Track Town USA, which spearheaded Oregon’s bid for the 2021 championships, will pick up the tab for the governor and her team’s lodging in Doha.

The Oregon Tourism Commission, known as Travel Oregon, is also sending staff to the Qatar games, although Kondayen did not say how many plan to go.

“There is significant marketing and tourism value for the state and Oregon businesses” in traveling to the event, Kondayen wrote. “Other Oregonians are also going but the Governor’s office is not coordinating with them.”

The federation’s award of the event to Eugene has been caught up in an international corruption investigation. Lamine Diack, the former head of the federation, awarded the championships to Eugene after a closed-door meeting with Vin Lananna, then-track coach at the University of Oregon track coach and head of the Eugene organizing committee. Diack dispensed with the normal bidding process, drawing protests from other cities interested in hosting.

Lananna is no longer affiliated with the Eugene world championships. He left the University of Oregon this summer after agreeing to coach the track and field team at the University of Virginia.

Diack was head of the federation for nearly 16 years. Arrested in France in 2015, he is being tried on charges of corruption, influence-trafficking and money laundering. The money-laundering charge alone carries a potential jail term of up to 10 years.

The U.S. Department of Justice launched its own investigation. The status of that probe is unclear. Local FBI officials said they are not allowed to comment on the status of investigations or whether there is an investigation. The governor’s staff haven’t heard anything about the status of the investigation, Kondayen said.

Corruption in big-time sports has caught the attention of U.S. criminal investigators as well. In recent years, federal prosecutors have filed landmark cases against international soccer bureaucrats and sneaker company marketers making under-the-table payments to amateur basketball players.

The New York Times reported last January that DOJ lawyers were looking hard at the IAAF and the International Olympic Committee.

Even the Doha championships are under scrutiny.

Qatar is a tiny country on the Arabian Peninsula that boasts a total population of just 2.6 million. On a per capita basis, it is by some measures the wealthiest country in the world. To put itself on the map, Qataris have aggressively sought to host major international athletic competitions.

Qatar landed the 2019 track and field championships despite its extremely warm weather. Even in October, the average high temperature is 95. In hopes of allaying concerns, the Qataris installed air conditioning at the outdoor stadium hosting the event.

French prosecutors last spring filed preliminary charges against a prominent Qatari sports broadcaster suspected of bribing Diack’s son in connection with the country’s successful bid to host track and field’s world championships.