News26 Oct 2000


Choice of athletes for Jubilee of the Sportsman

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Mark Lewis-Francis after winning the 100m at the 2000 IAAF World Junior Championships (© Getty Images)

IAAF President Lamine Diack, currently in Göteborg, Sweden, for the annual World Calendar Conference, spoke of his great pride in the selection of athletics as a showpiece event of Sunday's Jubilee of the Sportsman in Rome. His Holiness Pope John Paul II will be watching the race from the VIP stand of the Olympic Stadium.

"This event has great symbolic and spiritual importance," said Diack. "The IAAF was honoured to have received this invitation, and we are sending the finalists of the men’s 100m final at the recent World Junior Championships, plus the World Youth Champion at 200m, Tim Benjamin, to complete the field. These young athletes represent our hopes for the future. The concept of the Jubilee goes beyond sport and, by bringing together these youngsters from different backgrounds and religions, we will demonstrate that athletics represents universality and a great means of enhancing peaceful relations among nations and individuals."

Heading the list of participants is Mark Lewis-Francis, the talented British sprinter who won the World Junior title so impressively. Lewis Francis will be joined by the Santiago silver medallist Salem Mubarak Al-Yami (KSA), bronze medallist Mark Burns (TRI), Darrel Brown (TRI), Michael Frater (JAM), Ricardo Alves (POR), Saad Faray Al-Shahwani (QAT), Ellis Ollarves (VEN) and Tim Benjamin (GBR).

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