See you in Berlin 2009

Dear friends of international athletics,

“Thank you Osaka - see you in berlin 2009™” – with these words emblazoned on a banner, members of the German Athletics Association (DLV) team bid farewell to their Japanese hosts at the closing ceremony of the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics. For us at BOC, the end of the event in Asia signalled the start of the final stage of preparations for the third most important sporting event in the world – after the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup. Berlin’s mayor Klaus Wowereit waved the IAAF flag he had been given to mark the coming of the event to Germany’s capital, symbolising Berlin’s pivotal role in the athletics world over the next two years. All those involved with the preparation and organisation of the event felt an overwhelming feeling of elation, but with it the sobering realisation of the responsibility involved in staging it.

Employees of the Berlin Organising Committee (BOC 2009), led by CEO Heinrich Clausen, who will from now on share executive power with a second CEO, Frank Hensel, watched the championships in Osaka very closely indeed in order to draw lessons from it for their own work. The 2009 championships in Berlin will be different in many respects, even though many good ideas have been adopted from Osaka and developed for berlin 2009™. This latest edition of our newsletter will give you all the essential information about the current structure of the BOC.

Tickets for the morning and evening events of berlin 2009™ will go on sale in spring of next year. Anyone interested in buying tickets can register on the BOC website (www.berlin2009.org), which contains all the essential information about berlin 2009™.

We hope you enjoy our newsletter and would love to hear your comments,

BOC 2009.

Frank Hensel – an institution in German athletics

Born in 1950, he shows no signs of slowing down and doesn't take offence when he is, with some justification, described as an institution in German Athletics. At the beginning of September, Hensel, then General Secretary of the German Athletics Federation (DLV), also took over the position of CEO of BOC 2009 GmbH. The former decathlete and bobsledder will share the task of overseeing preparations for berlin 2009™ with Heinrich Clausen, who was promoted from general secretary to CEO.

Hensel, born in Mecklenburg in northern Germany, lives for athletics, and German athletics would be unimaginable without him. As an athlete, he first won competitions in the Lunenburg area and then in Mainz. The father of four (now grown-up) children achieved remarkable results in the 1970s when he scored 7,441 points (old scoring system) in the decathlon and raced to seventh place in the fourman sled event of the European Championships. Shortly after becoming a qualified sports teacher, Hensel headed east, becoming the head trainer of the Iranian Athletics Association in 1978 and 1979.

From 1979, the new CEO worked for twelve years as the head state coach in Berlin, a city which was to become very familiar to him. Hensel advanced to become the DLV’s hurdling trainer for young talent, and in 1991 he was made the governing body’s full-time national trainer. In 1994 the 57 year-old was promoted to the position of director of competitive sports, and in 1998 he took on the additional role of general secretary at the DLV-office in Darmstadt. After temporarily ceasing his activities as director of competitive sports in 2001, Frank Hensel held the two posts of general secretary and director of sports from 2004.

Head coach Jürgen Mallow has now accepted the latter role, enabling Frank Hensel to concentrate on his latest appointment. The new man at the top was heavily involved with preparations for the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics during Berlin's successful bid to host the event. He was the DLV representative on the bid committee in 2004 and played a decisive role in bringing the World Championships to the German capital.

Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, personally carried the IAAF flag, which symbolises the hosting of the World Championships in Athletics, from Osaka, Japan, to the German capital. The day after his return the political head of Berlin, along with Dr Clemens Prokop, president of the German Athletics Federation (DLV), and decathlete André Niklaus, presented the blue IAAF flag at the traditional “Hoffest“ (courtyard party) at Berlin’s city hall.

Wowereit was handed the flag by IAAF president Lamine Diack (Senegal) at the closing ceremony of the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, in Osaka, Japan’s third largest city. The flag will fly in the German capital until the closing ceremony of berlin 2009™, a reminder to residents and guests that the World Championships in Athletics will take place there from the 15th to the 23rd August 2009, and will be the third most important sporting event in the world, after the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup, and the biggest sporting event in that year.

During his visit, the mayor watched some of the competitions in Osaka’s Nagai Stadium and held meetings with his counterpart Dr Junichi Seki and a number of Japanese companies. During a reception held in a traditional Japanese garden in the heart of Osaka, Wowereit introduced himself and the BOC to several hundred representatives of the international athletics family. The next day Wowereit held an international press conference at which he presented Berlin as the host venue of the 12th IAAF World Champion - ships in Athletics.

The German chancellor Angela Merkel was the only head of state to pay an official visit to the 11th IAAF World Championships in Athletics in Osaka, Japan. The chancellor used the opportunity provided by her state visit to China and Japan to make a trip from Tokyo to the World Championships stadium, where she and her delegation met the German Athletics Federation (DLV) team. Dr Clemens Prokop, president of the DLV, presented the World Championships competitors to the chancellor, who so far this year had only visited the German national football team.

Before she met the team, Berlin's mayor Klaus Wowereit received Frau Merkel at the berlin 2009™ stand in the entrance hall of the Nagai stadium along with Dr Prokop – both men are co-Presidents of the Berlin Organising Committee (BOC 2009) - where they informed her of the activities of the Berlin delegation in Osaka.

The head of the German government watched the electrifying women's javelin event from the grandstand, and saw Christina Obergföll and Steffi Nerius on their way to winning their respective silver and bronze medals. Understandably, the chancellor was unable to stay till the very end. Her tight schedule meant a quick return to the airport, where the plane destined for the journey back to Germany was waiting for its most high profile passenger. During the flight, Angela Merkel enquired about the final results by telephone.

The BOC 2009, the organising committee behind the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics, berlin 2009™, is to operate under the leadership of a “duumvirate“. The general assembly of BOC GmbH 2009 has selected Heinrich Clausen, the committee’s former general secretary, and Frank Hensel, general secretary of the German Athletics Federation (DLV), to replace outgoing CEO Heiner Henze, who stepped down on the 30th September.

Clausen will now be responsible for the organisation of the event. Michael Mronz’s agency MMP, which established its reputation as the distributor behind the successful 2006 World Equestrian Games in Aachen, will be responsible for some parts of promotion and ticketing.

Dr Clemens Prokop, president of the BOC and of the DLV, and Berlin’s mayor, Klaus Wowereit, announced these appointments publicly during a BOC reception in Osaka, Japan, during this year’s World Championships. Prokop commented: “Their combined experience will ensure that the BOC’s excellent work continues.”

During the World Championships in Osaka, a host of international athletics stars made their way to the BOC 2009 stand in the entrance hall of the Nagai Stadium. Numerous Olympic medal winners, World Champions and world record holders visited to find out how preparations were going.

One of the first visitors the BOC 2009 delegation had the honour of receiving was Lamine Diack, the President of the International Association of Athletics Federations. Pole-vaulting legend Sergey Bubka (Ukraine) – who was appointed IAAF Senior Vice-presedent during the Council Meeting – and Great Britain’s middle-distance hero Lord Coe showed great interest in the BOC's work and expressed their high expectations for the event. Both had been elected as vice- presidents of the IAAF by the Association’s congress just a few days previously. Coe is president of LOCOG, the body responsible for organising the 2012 Olympic Games in London and at the end of the World Championships, Bubka was also elected as President Diack’s deputy by the IAAF Council.

Long jump world record holder Mike Powell (USA), who triumphed in Tokyo in 1991, and Namibia's most famous sprinter Frank Fredericks - both ambassadors of the Inter national Association - also posed in front of the berlin 2009™ stand, showing their interest in the next World Championships, which will take place in the German capital from the 15th to the 23rd of August 2009.

Heike Drechsler and Frank Fredericks support the BOC

Some of the biggest stars of international athletics are helping the BOC 2009 to ensure that the 12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics berlin 2009™ is a hit with the public. On the penultimate day of the World Championships in Osaka, Japan, the Berlin delegation, headed by Berlin’s Mayor, Klaus Wowereit, and German Athletics Federation President, Dr Clemens Prokop, introduced Heike Drechsler and Frank Fredericks as their sports advisers. As ambassadors, both campaigned fiercely for Berlin's bid to host the championships. Their hard work was rewarded almost three years ago with the IAAF's acceptance of the Berlin bid.

The BOC has now succeeded in confirming that Drechsler, twice Olympic Champion and World Champion, who was elected to the IAAF Women’s Committee at the recent IAAF congress, and is active internationally as an expert commentator for Swiss television, and Fredericks, the Namibian former sprinter, who is highly regarded in the international sports world, will continue to work for the BOC 2009. Both are ambassadors for the International Association, and were amongst the six international stars who held the IAAF flag in the Nagai Stadium during the opening ceremony in Osaka.

“berlin 2009™ is set to be a worldclass competition for athletes and a unique attraction for spectators, whether in the Olympic Stadium itself or watching on television screens across the globe. We hope that these two experienced athletes can offer us expert advice on how we can improve our work further“, BOC President Prokop commented when presenting the new advisers and representatives of the biggest international sporting event of 2009.

Fredericks, who also supports sprinters from the German Athletics Federation (DLV) is a member of, and athletes’ spokesman for, the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Berlin has become almost a second home to the 39 year-old father of two. The 1993 World Champion is married to a Berliner and visits to his parents-in-law in the capital have become a regular stop on his busy travel schedule. Heike Drechsler could well be described as the most prominent representative of German athletics internationally. Drechsler, who now resides in Karlsruhe, said: “We want to help make berlin 2009™ a particularly memorable and successful event“.

berlin 2009™ is pleased to be receiving emphatic support from the government: Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Federal Minister for Finance Peer Steinbrück have presented concrete measures for promoting the largest sporting event in the world for the year 2009.

With relay batons in his suitcase as a symbol for an invitation, the Foreign Minister will soon set off on a journey. Dr. Steinmeier will pass on the batons to his foreign colleagues. In addition, the Foreign Ministry will be participating in funding the international training camps. Dr. Steinmeier has taken on the patronage for this project. “I would like to contribute to the success of this event,” the Foreign Minister declared. “We like to see opportunities for discussion that are created through sport that are not possible through politics.“ Together with Dr. Clemens Prokop, the president of the German Athletics Federation (DLV), world champion hammer thrower Betty Heidler, World Championship bronze medallist Danny Ecker (pole vault), and 400m-sprinter Kamghe Gaba passed the black-redgold relay baton to the Foreign Minister, who already had received batons in the colours of the USA and Germany for his next trip. “We are thankful for the financial support, but non-material support from the Foreign Minister and the almost 200 German Embassies and Consulates around the world is just as important,” Prokop said at the hand-off.

The Federal Ministry for Finance is providing support for berlin 2009™ through an unusual measure: Minister Peer Steinbrück called all German citizens to participate in an ideas competition for the creation of a 10-euro commemorative coin. Together with World Champion discus thrower Franka Dietzsch, pole vaulter Björn Otto, and hurdler Thomas Blaschek, Dr. Clemens Prokop, presented the programme to the Minister at his office. As a former long-distance runner, Steinbrück expressed great interest in the sports careers of the athletes. The DLV president assessed the support from the Ministry as the highest accolade for the core Olympic sport: “The commemorative coin is a special honour and distinction for the World Championships 2009, reflecting both the national and international importance of this sporting event,” Prokop said. “We hope to awaken interest for berlin 2009™ from the general public through the ideas competition.”

 

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