Moscow Open

event
tel, where the championships’
VIP’s lived. Also, for the first
time in the history of the
championships, the press did
not have a special bus service
to take them from their hotels
to the stadium, so journalists
had to use public transport.
The head of Organizing
Committee, Heinrich Clausen,
reported that the organisers
had, at their disposal, a budget
of 44 million Euros. Of
this, 20 million had been received
from the city authorities
and the rest came from
ticket sales, commercial projects
and marketing.
“Of course, this is a good
budget for an Athletics World
Championships” said Clausen
in an interview for our magazine.
“But we must admit that
it is not that big. Approximately
the same amount was spent
on the opening ceremony of
the football World Cup in Berlin.
We had to work hard to
stay within the budget. If there
were more money, we certainly
would have done some things
differently. But the limited resources
made our lives and
work more interesting. The financial
crisis made it difficult
to get even this money out of
our sponsors and partners, but
the end result turned out well.
36 | www.athletics-magazine.com
Some problems arose from
the fact that the competition
took place at the Olympic stadium,
which was built in the
1930’s. Although it underwent
a thorough renovation and got
a modern electronic system,
restorers could not make any
material changes to the architecture.
First of all, I am very pleased
that this historic stadium was
renovated, and we had the opportunity
to hold our championships
there,” said Clausen,
“In this stadium, there is a
fantastic competitive atmosphere.
It was important that
during the reconstruction the
running track was saved: this
track of an unusual blue colour
became the symbol of
our competition. We had to
finish off some areas of the
stadium. These included places
for jumping, lighting rooms
and waiting rooms where athletes
waited for the start of
the events. We also built some
temporary structures.
Undoubtedly, the biggest
concern to the budget was
that we could not completely
fill the stadium with 70 thousand
spectators.” Clausen explained
that we had to spend
most of the funds on advertising
the competition, to let ev-
eryone know where and when
the Championships would be
held. “We had a number of different
advertising campaigns
running throughout Germany,”
said Clausen, “and we especially
took care to present the
Championships to Berlin. You
can see that the entire city
center has been covered with
advertisements related to the
Championships. The second
largest item of expenditure
was the accommodation, the
feeding and the transportation
of athletes, and setting up the
infrastructure for the TV transmission
of the Championships.
All this took 80 per cent
of our funds. In addition, there
was a new budget item, which
did not appear in other championships.
This was the equipping
of the second stadium,
near the Brandenburg Gate
required by the race walkers
and marathon runners. This
second stadium allowed us to
bring the competition closer
to the public.”
When asked why the Brandenburg
Gate was chosen
for the second stadium as
there were no large open areas
nearby, Clausen said:
“The Brandenburg Gate is a
special place for Berliners; it
is the traditional city centre.
The whole life of the capital is
concentrated around this area
and it is famous throughout
the world. First, we chose the
Brandenburg Gate as a place
for the race walking and marathon
Championships, and then
we decided to hold the cultural
program there as well.”
Based on his experiences in
Berlin, Heinrich Clausen advised
organizers of any future
World Championships, including
those in Moscow, to carefully
calculate their finances
and to work closely with the
IAAF, doing exactly and nothing
more than that which is
required for the Championships.
“I hope that athletics will
remain in this stadium,” he
said. “Although, next year, it is
planned to hold athletic events
in Berlin in a more modest stadium,
there is a great deal of
support for holding large athletic
events in the Olympic stadium.
This is a fantastic stadium
in a fantastic city, where
the whole population supports
athletics.”
Grete Waitz
appeals to the World
The legendary Norwegian
runner Grete Waitz, the first
woman world champion in the
marathon, and nine times winner
of the New York marathon
came to the Championships
in Berlin to promote the work
of her Fund, which financed
and promoted physical activity
as a means of fighting
cancer and other diseases.
In Berlin, a partnership program
between the Fund and
Adidas was announced where
Adidas, to support the Fund,
had created an entire line of
running equipment called the
‘Grete Active Range’ with the
slogan: ‘Activ mot kreft’ (Activity
against Cancer), with
unique designs and special
colours. Revenue from the
sale of products in this range
would go to the Fund. Production
first went on sale during
the World Championships and