As the World Championships draw to an end in Helsinki, he International Association of Athletics Federation (IAAF) has woken up to the needs of marketing the games well in areas outside Europe too.IAAF has drawn up plans to take athletic meets, concentrated in Europe, out of the continent in order to popularise and spread it in every other continent.Out of 45 events in a calander year, 15 will he held in continents other than Europe from next year until 2007. Similarly, IAAF has also reworked the schedule from January to September, instead of the present July to September cycle, said IAAF president Lamine Diack.“This has been done to take care of prevailing seasons in different countries and also to give time enough for the atheltes to recover and pick and choose their events in different parts of the world,” he said.IAAF president said that Asia will get to host three events from next year unlike an occasional one-off event they get now.Emphasising the need to have more one-day events, Diack said that such programmes would make things easier for both the hosts and the athletes. “This is the only way we can spread the message on the importance of taking to athletics by the younger generation,” he said.He also stressed on the fact that gateway to winning medals at major events such as the Olympics or world championships was dependeent on superior training centres with latest facilities. “You can’t dream about winning medals at these championships without better facilities to your athletes. “In good old days, when I started, we didn’t have even a proper ground for running. Today the situation has changed. But there are several countries that still lack the basic facilities,” he said.
