Last week for Member Federations to sign-up for 2011 IAAF World Athletics Day

Monte Carlo – The IAAF’s annual worldwide festival of youth, the IAAF World Athletics Day, which was originated in 1996, is fast approaching.

Now in its 16th year the IAAF World Athletics Day is one of the busiest programmes of competitions in the annual global Athletics calendar, with over 160 IAAF Member Federations participating in 2010.

The deadline for IAAF Member Federations to submit the IAAF World Athletics Day 2011 Participation Reply Form is Thursday 17 February 2011. Forms should be sent to wad@iaaf.org

The IAAF World Athletics Day when it began in 1996 was exclusively planned for youngsters who were members of clubs affiliated to IAAF Member Federations, but in recent years the scope of the project has broadened to include the participation of school children in individual and team competitions. With the addition of these two new categories, the World Athletics Day has become a complete and important event which annually promotes our sport around the world.

The goal of this year’s edition of the IAAF World Athletics Day is to firmly establish an important link between the youth, our sport, and environmental conservation.

Upon the recommendation of the IAAF Sustainable Development Commission, Member Federations last year and this have been strongly urged to implement the IAAF Green Project in association with the IAAF World Athletics Day, in order to help build the awareness of the youth on issues concerning sustainable development and environment protection.

Member Federations are being encouraged to organise a number of activities including tree plantings, inviting their athletes to take part in the protection of the environment at training and competition sites, and seeking the cooperation of local organisations specialised in ecological matters to assist in promoting sport and the environment.

The IAAF World Athletics Day 2011 will be held in May, preferably the weekend of Saturday 14 & Sunday 15 May, and involves Youth Age Group children from Clubs who were born in 1994-1995 (16-17 years old).

For the sixth year in accordance with the goal of the IAAF Athletics’ World Plan to make Athletics the number one sport in Schools, the World Athletics Day is also being organised in close cooperation with the relevant national ministry which is in charge of School Sport in each country. The age group for these Schools activities is Boys and Girls born in 1996-1997-1998 (13-15 years old), with the team element involving 6 children per side.

The IAAF will be sending parcels of promotional items (T-Shirts, pins, posters, diplomas) to each Member Federation who announced their participation by the deadline (17 February 2011). There will also be the usual financial grant credited to all who submit their results and reports on time (31 May 2011).

All those Member Federations involved have also been encouraged to seize the opportunity to organise a “Kids’ Athletics” exhibition in clubs and/or schools for the 7-12 year olds.

IAAF