Memorial Van Damme stamps (© Belgian Mail)
The Memorial Van Damme meeting, Brussels, is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and to mark the occasion Belgium is today issuing a series of stamps about the IAAF Golden League meeting.
At the 1976 Montreal Olympics, a young bearded Belgian middle distance runner Ivo Van Damme became a national hero taking silver medals at 800m and 1500m respectively behind Alberto Juantorena of Cuba and John Walker of New Zealand. But just five months after this double medal success, Van Damme, at just 22, tragically died in a car accident in the south of France where he had been training.
The annual athletics meeting, the Memorial Van Damme, created in remembrance of this prodigiously talented runner, has gone on to be one of the annual highlights of the international season, and is one of the six IAAF Golden League meetings.
It was to mark the meeting’s success and the continued memory of Ivo Van Damme, that on 13 April 2006, the Belgian Secretary for Governmental Institutions, Bruno Tuybens, and Frank Daniëls of the Belgian Mail, in the presence of embassy representatives from the UK, New Zealand and Cuba, announced the publication of the stamps.
It had originally been attempted to mark the 25th anniversary but as Meeting Director Wilfried Meert confirmed, “while the Belgium post office were delighted by the proposal, they needed to plan a long time in advance and when we approached them it was too late as they needed a year to make the necessary preparations.”
The choice of the five athletes, who are portrayed on the stamps along with the name of the meeting, was thoughtfully planned.
“Ivo’s inclusion was of course obvious,” confirmed Meert. “In much the same way were the photos of Alberto Juantorena and John Walker because they were the two men who beat him in Montreal.”
“The final two athletes, both British, Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, were chosen because of the loyal role they both played in supporting the opening years of the Van Damme Memorial…. Remember it was Coe who gave the meeting its first World record (Mile 1981).”
These five men shaped the name and fame of the internationally renowned track and field meeting, and each of the living expressed delight, and modest surprise that they were being asked to be included on the stamps.”
“Yet the decision itself to mark an athletics meeting, and in particular the four living athletes, on a national stamp, was a notable one,” noted Meert. Prior to the publication five years ago of a stamp which showed the face of Dirk Frimout, the first Belgian astronaut, it had been custom that only royalty, and persons deceased, were depicted on Belgium stamps. Certainly, prior to this issue of the Memorial Van Damme stamps, no sporting event or athlete has ever been considered for a stamp in Belgium.
From today, Monday 24 April, the 500,000 stamps are available from post offices in Belgium.
NOTE. The photographs of the five athletes were all taken by Mark Shearman.
The Memorial Van Damme meeting takes place on 25 August 2006.
Chris Turner for the IAAF