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Leading Czech athletes back ‘Ostrava supports continents’ school project

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The IAAF Continental Cup will be staged in Ostrava, Czech Republic on 8-9 September and four leading Czech athletes will be involved not only in the promotion of the event but supporting a project designed to get schoolchildren active.

At a press conference held in the Ostrava Town Hall today (16), the details of the ‘Ostrava supports continents’ project was unveiled.

The project was initiated by the Czech Athletic Federation in connection with the IAAF Continental Cup Local Organising Committee and some 57 schools across the region - 30 elementary schools and 27 secondary schools - will compete against each other on a regular basis in the lead up to the IAAF Continental Cup.

The IAAF Continental Cup brings together teams from Europe, Asia-Pacific, Africa and the Americas and each school was allocated a particular continent during a special draw ceremony held at the press conference on Thursday.

The project will be supported all through the year by championship patrons and ambassadors - whether via video messages or personal visits to particular schools.

The best athletes from the competition will then be invited to compete in a special pre-programme event ahead of the main programme at the IAAF Continental Cup.

'The goal of the 'Ostrava supports continents' project is to involve children in regular physical activity because athletics is the foundation of all sports and this connection offers the chance. To be interesting for the children, it is certainly important they have their patrons in the competitions so we co-operated with four leading Czech athletes who have become faces of a school project in which they will engage in various roles throughout the year, “ explained Libor Varhaník, chairman of Czech Athletic Federation.

'At the same time, we would like to take advantage of the fact that athletes from all the continents will come to Ostrava. The ambassadors of each school is a former leading athletics star from each continent who will be connected directly with schools. We would like the children to learn about the culture, habits and the life of athletes in different parts of the world and other aspects just in conjunction with our ambassadors.'

The four Czech athletes who will be actively supporting ‘Ostrava supports continents’ are world javelin champion and record-holder Barbora Spotakova; world and European indoor 400m champion Pavel Maslak; European pole vault silver medallist Jan Kudlicka; and world and European U20 high jump champion Michaela Hruba.

'Every project that brings children to the sport is important so I agreed to be a patron of it immediately. As a native of Havířov [situated around 10 kilometres to the east of Ostrava], I also like the fact that such a project is taking place in our region,“ said Maslak, who is a patron of the African team.

Hruba is the patron of the European team while four former stars of the sport were named as ambassadors for each of the teams.

Europe will be represented in this capacity by European 110m hurdles record holder and four-times European 110m hurdles champion Colin Jackson.

The project was led by the Czech Athletic Federation and backed wholeheartedly by the City of Ostrava and the Moravian-Silesian Region. “I am especially pleased with the accompanying event ‘Ostrava supports continents’ which aims to actively involve school children in athletic and sports at all. And maybe there will be a talent that will compete with the best athletes of the world in a few years,” said Tomas Macura, the Mayor of Ostrava.

Team Europe claimed the overall victory at the last edition of the IAAF Continental Cup in Marrakech in 2014.




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