With less than 100 days until the European Athletics Indoor Championships begin in Belgrade, preparations are underway for the country’s biggest ever athletics event which will take place in the Kombank Arena from 3-5 March 2017.
In a press conference held at the venue for the biennial championships on Wednesday, president of the Local Organising Committee Slobodan Brankovic - who won the 400m title at the 1992 European Indoor Championships - addressed the media about the logistical progress of the event as well as one of the legacies of the championships.
“Organisation for this athletics spectacle is going as planned and today - 100 days before the championships - is an opportunity to thank the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the City of Belgrade for their support once again. Thanks to them we will organise the biggest event in the history of Serbia.
'Considering we bought a movable athletics track, we will be able to place it into one of the cities in Serbia after the competition and in that way create a new indoor athletics arena. We would also like to thank our sponsors at MTS, Volkswagen and Dunav osiguranje who are supporting us. In the upcoming weeks we plan to sign a few more contracts with several respectable companies and partners,” said Brankovic.
More than 450 volunteers are required to assist with operations across 12 sectors during the championships and the LOC is pleased to report that more than 700 candidates from fourteen countries - Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Türkiye, Netherlands, Belgium, Armenia, Georgia as well as Serbia - have applied to play a part in the championships. More than 600 interviews have already been conducted.
And to mark the country’s biggest ever athletics event which is set to attract 705 athletes from 48 countries based on preliminary entries, all of the top names in Serbian athletics are targeting the championships as outlined by the secretary of the Serbian Athletics Federation Slobodan Popovic.
“All of our representatives are healthy and will soon start their preparations for the European Indoor Championships in March. Most of them will prepare in Serbia while Mihail Dudas and Tamara Salaski will train in South Africa. It is still early for predictions but we are sure that they will give their best to achieve top results before the home crowd in Kombank Arena,” he said.
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At the end of the press conference, five promotional videos starring Ivana Spanovic, Asmir Kolasinac, Lazar Anic, Amela Terzic and Mihail Dudas were played before the guests. The videos will be used as an integral part of the marketing strategy for the event. Each athlete will invite the home fans to purchase tickets for the competition and be part of the spectacle.
Tickets are now available at the 'Eventim ticket sales' as well as on the event website.