The Tsiklitiria Super Grand Prix meeting, the premiere annual one-day meeting in the Greek capital, has been downgraded to Grand Prix status, in part due its poor attendance last July
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“There were several failings, not just one,” said IAAF General Secretary Pierre Weiss.
Despite a spate of world-leading performances on the track, the stands of the 2004 Olympic venue were virtually empty at July’s competition, prompting the decision made. Empty seats, Weiss said, are not something the IAAF wants to see at one of its six Super Grand Prix events. “We have to think of the image a spectator sees on television.”
Weiss also confirmed that the annual Helsinki Grand Prix will not be held in 2007, but that continental meetings in New York, Carson, Calif., and Rethymno, Greece, have applied to be promoted to the Grand Prix level. Their status will be decided in December.
FROM THE IAAF:
IAAF World Athletics Tour
The Helsinki GP meeting which was part of the World Athletics Tour in 2006 has been cancelled.
Council heard that three other one-day meetings – Carson (USA), New York (USA), Rethymno (GRE) – have asked to join the World Athletics Tour. It was agreed that further information regarding their applications would be considered by the IAAF Advisory Board (which is made up of the IAAF President, Vice-Presidents, and Honorary Treasurer) and a decision will be made before the end of 2006.
One of the confounding aspects of this bad news is that Helsinki hosted last year’s World Championships and Athens hosted this year’s World Cup.
Maybe the local fans have been spoiled and aren’t interested in anything other than championship athletics (as distinct from the GP circus with it’s paced races and very few head-to-head clashes in events that ignite the public interest).
Or maybe the lack of local heroes, sometimes as distinct from merely successful locals, has hurt at the gate. That would probably be the case in Athens and I cannot think readily of any Finnish athlete I would cross the road to see even if I was paid.
A few reasons for the Athens meeting, as I understand it.
the stadium is too big for such a meeting (not an excuse, just an “image” fact). The meeting has been done outside of Athens in the past with perhaps the same people more or less as in the Olympic stadium, but the alternative one was full, as it is considerably smaller, of course. This is a good reason for the TV showing good capacity, but not for the athletes, since they are missing the fast track in Athens.
in Greece, as far as I know, athletics is free. Placing a ticket price last year didn’t go down very well with the locals.
there is a big controversy between the two big clubs in Greece, which to some extend it can affect things. Mr M. Kyriakou is the president of one of those clubs, which also organises the meeting.
the same person is a candidate for IAAF president, I think and of course, he doesn’t have everyone’s support -in and out of Greece. Although he’s losing support anyway from IAAF -this meeting perhaps being an indication of this (not that it happened without a good reason, of course!!!).
lastly, after the Olympics and with all the events happening back then (and since), there is no local hero, as you said and most importantly people have lost faith in the sport to a great degree.
That’s my take on this from friends of mine; it makes sense to me!
