Olympic rehearsal
August 25, 2011
The bi-annual World Athletics Championships are considered the most important sporting event after the Football World Cup and the Olympic Games. This year they are taking place in Daegu, South Korea's fourth-largest city, which is famous for its Haeinsa temple. Located some 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, the city has a population of 2.5 million.
Rehearsal for Olympics
The athletics championships are being considered a rehearsal for the Winter Olympics of 2018 that South Korea was elected to host last month in Pyeongchang.
The organizers are expecting some 500,000 people to attend the event, for which over 97 percent of the tickets have already been sold. Even though many of them went to organizations, companies and schools, and some were given out as freebies, the organizers hope that the events will be crowded with fans.
The opening ceremony will be held at Daegu Stadium that was built at a cost of over 265 million US dollars for the 2002 World Cup. The state-of-the-art tartan track is expected to allow sprinters in particular to set new records.
Daegu 2011 is the first athletics championship to feature an Olympic-style athletes and media village. Located just seven minutes away from the stadium, it can accommodate up to 3,500 people.
Blanket blood tests
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has stepped up its campaign against doping and has conducted blood tests on all the athletes competing at the event. In addition, some 500 urine samples will be taken from medalists and other athletes. The blood tests are being conducted on top of the regular doping tests.
Werner Franke, an anti-doping campaigner in Heidelberg, says anyone caught at Daegu would have to be "crazy," especially a top athlete with a good financial situation. He adds that although the tests may act as a deterrent they should have been conducted during the training period and not only ahead of the competition itself.
Over 100 athletes have been caught doping since the last world championships. Sixteen gold medals have changed hands as a result
South Korea has not won a medal since the first championships in Helsinki in 1983 and it was especially disappointed two years ago in Berlin when all 19 athletes were knocked out in the preliminary rounds but it has high hopes for the coming games.
"We are expecting to have 10 finalists in 10 events. That's our goal in these championships," Moon Bong-gi, the head coach of the South Korean athletics team, has said optimistically.
The nine-day event kicks off on August 27 with the women's marathon.
Author: Arnulf Boettcher / act
Editor: Arun Chowdhury