News12 Jan 2011


Athletics Shines at the Brazilian School Olympics 2010 - SOUTH AMERICA

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Fabiana Murer ups her South American record to 4.85m in San Fernando (© CIASF/APD Cadiz - G. Cumbreras)

The Confederation of Brazilian Athletics participates in a nationwide multi- sport event that captures the attention of the nation and promotes athletics within schools. This event shares the spirit of the Athletics World Plan by focusing on the development of youth competition. 

The Confederation of Brazilian Athletics hosts the athletics competition within the School Olympics; a multi-sport tournament held the first week of December between schools across the country. The competition gathers athlete’s ages 15 to 17 years old with a total of 595 athletes and 27 teams represented.

The school Olympics 2010 had a record number of sports and participants this year with 12 sports present and 4,400 athletes.  There were also foreign observers from five continents there to learn about the event with the goal of being able to implement a similar school event back to their countries.

The CBAT was able to showcase the heroes of Brazilian Athletics; Maurren Maggi and Vanderlei Cordeiro de Lima are among the ambassadors of the School Olympics 2010. Maurren won at the Beijing Games in 2008, the first individual female gold medal of Brazil. Vanderlei won the bronze medal in the Athens Olympics in 2004.

By providing the event with ambassadors, the CBAT is able to utilise this opportunity to further promote both youth participation and elite competition. 

How does your organisation work to provide competition for youth athletes? Have you developed any new youth specific events? If you want to share some of your own experiences please contact us at worldplan@iaaf.org with a short summary, and a member of our editorial team will contact you. Together, we can share in the spirit of the Athletics’ World Plan.

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