Posted: July 13, 2005

Athletics: The World's Biggest Ever Youth Athletics Competition Starts Today In Marrakesh

MONACO - With a record 180 countries and close to 1400 young athletes taking part, the 4th IAAF/Maroc Telecom World Youth Championships, which starts today in Marrakech, will go down in history as the biggest ever World Youth competition.

IAAF President Lamine Diack said: “I am delighted with the attendance figures because they show that our sport continues to have a strong appeal for teenagers all over the world. Young athletes are the future of our sport. The IAAF/Maroc Telecom World Youth Championships will be a life-enhancing experience for these athletes. I am sure that they will be delighted by this historic city, where our Moroccan hosts have provided a magnificent welcome and probably the best accommodation facilities that these youngsters have ever known."

The IAAF Website will carry full results, end of session reports, individual reports for all finals and photos in a special IAAF/Maroc Telecom World Youth Championships section of the IAAF Website.

Website: IAAF.org.

The first session of the championships which starts this morning at 9am local time includes the qualification rounds of the boys’ Shot Put and Javelin Throw contests with the finals of both events being scheduled for this afternoon.

Also in this morning’s programme, the first two events of the boys’ Octathlon and the first round of the boys’ and girls’ 100m sprint.

The history of the 100m event at the World Youth Championships is rich and results of previous editions have shown that the sprinting talents of the future truly lie among the participants of today’s competition.

Indeed the inaugural edition of the IAAF World Youth Championships saw Athens Olympic champions Jamaican Veronica Campbell and Great Britain’s Mark Lewis-Francis take the 100m gold medals; two years later in Debrecen, Hungary, Paris 2003 World silver medallist Darrel Brown of Trinidad and Tobago and Athens 200m silver medallist Allyson Felix (USA) won the boys’ and girls’ 100m titles respectively.

So don’t miss out on the Marrakech World Youth Championships, the stars of tomorrow are among today’s competitors!

This afternoon’s finals include (local time):

19:45:              Boys’ Shot Put
20:15:              Boys’ Javelin Throw
21:25:              Girls’ 3000m