City News

Former World Indoor Champion and World Record holder, Ashia Hansen has warned athletics fans to snap up tickets for the European Athletics Indoor Championships, which is being staged at the National Indoor Arena from 2-4 March 2007.

The triple jump star, who struck gold in Birmingham three years ago gave the warning as daily tickets for the Championships, which will be the most significant athletics event staged in the UK before the 2012 Olympics, went on sale for the first time.

Hansen, believes the home crowd helped her to leap to victory at the IAAF World Indoor Championships which was held in the same venue in March 2003 and is sure that the success of this event means that tickets will soon disappear.

Hansen said: “The NIA crowd are always passionate and hugely supportive and I truly believe that they inspired me to victory in 2003. Birmingham’s World Indoor Championships was such a success that I really think that athletics fans across the country will not want to miss out on being part of another major championships at the NIA.”

She added: “Competing in front of a home crowd at such a high profile event was amazing and I’m sure that members of the Norwich Union Great Britain and Northern Ireland athletics team will be keen to make sure they are part of the event. It is also a fantastic chance for young up and coming athletes to launch their careers in preparation for the 2012 Olympics.”

Three day passes for the major international event went on sale in February and more than a third of tickets have already been sold even though there are still nine months to go before the event, which illustrates Hansen’s point. Daily tickets start at just £6 for concessions and £12 for adults and are divided into bronze, silver and gold price categories depending on where you want to sit in the arena.

The European Athletics Indoor Championships has been a successful event for the British team in the past with the hosts winning more than 100 medals since 1970. However the competition in Birmingham next March is expected to be fierce with the likes of Olympic Champion and Swedish heptathlon star Carolina Kluft, and world pole vault record holder Yelena Isinbayeva having competed at the last edition of the Championships in Madrid.

More than 600 athletes from around 50 countries will be taking part in the event and they will even have a new track on which to compete, thanks to regional development agency Advantage West Midlands, who recently agreed to fund a new track surface for the venue, which has seen numerous world records broken in recent years. The championship is a European Athletic Association event and will be jointly organised by Birmingham City Council and UK Athletics. It will be part funded by UK Sport’s National Lottery-funded World Class Events Programme.

For more information about the European Athletics Indoor Championships log onto www.birminghamathletics2007.com or call 0870 739 2007.