Lausanne art student designs Women's Leadership Awards prize

Marjolaine Perreten

When the 31 winners of the 2011 European Athletics Women’s Leadership Award receive their prize in national ceremonies during the coming weeks they will be presented with a signed lithograph created by Marjolaine Perreten, a student at Lausanne's Ecole Romande d'arts et de Communication (ERACOM).

The first copy of the lithograph was given by European Athletics President Hansjörg Wirz to Anni Kirvesniemi- Bosco of Finland, who represented the other winners at the European Athletics Awards Night presented by MONDO in Arona, Spain, on 15 October.

Marjolaine's dynamic depiction of athletic disciplines was chosen from 14 proposals submitted by ERACOM students.

"Our idea is to recognise each national winner with the same piece of art, which will symbolically link the winners in an elite club or network that we hope will be active into the future," says Christian Milz, Director General of European Athletics.

20-year-old Marjolaine, who grew up in the Swiss village of Savigny near Lausanne, comes from a family of artists. With no background in sports, she drew inspiration from her mother Sylvie who is a dance trainer and her musician father Alain.

“I am not very well versed with sports, but my whole family is into music and dance,” she explained, “when I heard about this competition and I came across the motto of European Athletics – Your Sport for Life - it automatically clicked that every movement in athletics is somehow an extension of our movements in daily life. And I drew parallels between athletics movements and dance movements.”

According to Milz, the competition to find the artist to produce the prize for the awards represents a way for European Athletics to engage a new group and demonstrate how athletics can add value to thier lives.