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IAAF chief Diack hopes Chinese fans can fill Bird's Nest during 2015 worlds

Xinhua, July 18, 2015 Adjust font size:

Lamine Diack, President of the IAAF, world athletics governing body, said organisers need to step up promotional efforts to ensure that the Bird's Nest Stadium will be filled with fans during the World Championships to be held in one month.

Diack, currently in Cali, Colombia for the IAAF World Youth Championships, is concerned that the advertising and promotional activities in Beijing are too low key.

"I myself visited Beijing for the 'One Year to Go' promotional ceremony in August 2014 and I was in Beijing again in March and again in April 2015 to support the promotional effort," Diack said to the IAAF official website.

"On both occasions, I reiterated the need to invest properly in the promotional efforts to secure what had been promised to us by the Chinese authorities for this event - 100% capacity for the evening sessions and 30% for morning sessions," he said. "But at the moment, we see that some evening sessions are still around 50% of capacity, so we need to work very hard in the remaining weeks. We have no time to lose now."

"Together with my IAAF Council colleagues, I supported Beijing's bid for the 2015 World Championships because I believed that the event would not only be an extraordinary competition and would strengthen the image of our sport worldwide, but because I felt that it would allow China to unleash the huge potential of athletics in China. I call on all our partners in China to support us to achieve these goals."

The World Championships will be held from 22-30 August 2015 in Beijing's iconic Bird's Nest stadium, which also hosted the opening and closing ceremonies and athletics competitions during the 2008 Olympic Games. Endi