This weekend sees the start of the World Athletics Championships on Daegu, the last major athletics championships before the London 2012 Olympics next summer. I’m looking forward to enjoying some of the action in Daegu and am also hoping for some British success, with several of our athletes being serious medal prospects.
1,945 athletes from 202 countries will participate in Daegu, but underneath this elite tier of participants are hundreds of thousands of professional, amateur and social athletes all around the world, from the young and talented with Olympic aspirations to those who jog round their local park once a week. This reflects the central idea behind London 2012 and the Olympic movement in general; that everyone should be able to participate in and enjoy sport, regardless of their ability or background.
It was in this spirit that Lord Sebastian Coe, newly re-elected Vice-President of the IAAF and Chair of the London Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympic Games, participated in an athletics masterclass for Daegu sports club members. About 150 young people from the club, together with Daegu Mayor Kim Bum-il, welcomed Lord Coe to Daegu Citizens’ Stadium, where he shared advice and coaching tips with young athletes of all ages.
As you can see from the pictures, this was a fun occasion, designed to inspire young people to participate in and enjoy athletics, seeing it not only as something to win and excel at, but also as a way to make friends, lead a healthier lifestyle and generate an enhanced community spirit. These are all goals that London 2012 is striving to achieve in the UK, and it was great to see these values being shared with Korea in the build up to Daegu 2011.
I’m sure this is the first of many such exchanges between the UK and Korea at the start of a period of time when our two countries will host some of the world’s most high profile sporting events. We should use this opportunity to share ideas, knowledge and expertise to help make these events – Daegu 2011, London 2012, the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014, the Incheon Asian Games and the IRB Rugby World Cup in 2015, the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics in 2018 and the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2019 – as successful as possible, while spreading those ideals of participation and inclusion.
So good luck to Team GB over the next two weeks in Daegu, but equally importantly good luck to everyone – which includes even myself on the odd occasion – who will be pulling on their running gear at some point in the future.
