Newsletter B10/ n.1

1st May 2008

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Barcelona 2010 presents its website www.bcn2010.org is the new website of the 20th European Athletics Championships Barcelona 2010. The website was officially launched by the Sports Councillor of the City of Barcelona, Pere Alcober. During the presentation media representatives were able to try the website and discover all its multiple features.

Vicente Añó, General Coordinator of the Championships, and Raúl Martín, President of Oasyssoft, the company who programmed and supplied the software of the webpage, presented the sites many exciting features and stressed the importance of this communication tool for the 2010 Championships.

Oasyssoft, a company established in Barcelona in 1997, develops state-of-the-art software, including eBD, a leading programme in the development of websites.

The design of the webpage was done by the Estudi Virgili, who also designed the official logo of the B10 Championships.

The webpage is an essential tool for the promotion of the Championships. It has been set in three languages Catalan, Spanish and English, and it summarises all the important event organisation information, ranging from the history of the European Championships, to the magnificent places to visit and experience in the city of Barcelona. A special section has been dedicated to entertainment; here interactive games related to Athletics will be developed for all ages and knowledge levels.

In the near future the website will contain detailed media information, including a digital media centre - a virtual area at the disposal of all media representatives to gather information and to download documents related to this area.

From today, www.bcn2010.org will display the countdown of the days till the event will be staged. Today, 1st of May 2008, we know that in 816 days we will declare the 20th European Athletics Championships Barcelona 2010 open for business!

The Meeting of Barcelona on the road towards Beijin g

The Ciutat de Barcelona Meeting, which has been revived on the international calendar thanks to the European Athletics Championships Barcelona 2010, will be held on July 19th in the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium, and will be the home straight for athletes in the search of qualifying standards for the Beijing Olympic Games.

Newsletter B10/ n.1

1st May 2008

If you do not want to receive our newsletters or yo u wish to change your contact information, please send us an e-mail with the subject “changes” to newsletter@bcn2010.org

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The interest in the meeting grows day by day as it is scheduled one week before the Spanish National Championships. It will be an excellent opportunity for Spanish athletes to secure their Olympic passport. The meeting will be made up of 18 events (although it is possible further promotional events will be added targeted at local athletes). The men’s events will be the 200m, 400m, 800m, 1,500m, 5,000m, 110m Hurdles, High Jump, Long Jump and Discus, while the women’s events will be the 200m, 800m, 1,500m, 5,000m, 100m Hurdles, 3,000m Steeplechase, Pole Vault, Triple Jump and Javelin.

On its return to the international athletics calendar, the Barcelona meeting is included this year in the European Athletics Permit Meeting category alongside other cities like Belgrade, Glasgow, Moscow and Stockholm. There is one other Spanish city in the same category, Salamanca, which is a well renowned meeting in which world records have been broken, including the current World High Jump record held by the Cuban Javier Sotomayor (2,45m in 1993).

More than 80 designers compete to present the best mascot

The Organising Committee of the 20th European Athletics Championships Barcelona 2010 has announced the public contest for graphical designers and professionals of the sector to compete in creating the best mascot for the event. Until the end of May 2008 all Spanish designers will be working on developing proposals which

match the requirements established by the Organising Committee.

The evaluation commission, formed by one representative of each Institution of the Organising Committee of the 20th European Athletics Championships Barcelona 2010 (City Council of Barcelona, Provincial Council of Barcelona, Regional Parliament of Cataluña, Spanish Government, Catalan Athletics Federation, Royal Spanish Athletics Federation and European Athletics), the General Coordinator, as well as the Marketing and Promotion Directors of the Championships will select four finalists from the presented designs to ease the voting process.

The novelty of this public contest is that people in the streets of Barcelona will be able to vote for the final design of the mascot. The mascot, as in most big international events, is a very important tool for identification with and promotion of the Championships. The selection of a mascot which can unify the ideas of Athletics, the European Championships and the City of Barcelona, is one of the first big challenges of the marketing department.

All those interested in taking part in this voting process, which will be from 9 June till 19 July 2008, can do so through our website.

On Saturday, 19 July 2008 all Athletics fans are invited to attend the international athletics meeting “Míting Internacional d’Atletisme Ciutat de Barcelona”, which will take place in the Olympic Stadium of Montjuïc. This will be the last day of the voting campaign for the mascot. The winning mascot will be presented in September 2008 during the popular “Fiestas de la Mercè” of the City of Barcelona.

Newsletter B10/ n.1

1st May 2008

If you do not want to receive our newsletters or yo u wish to change your contact information, please send us an e-mail with the subject “changes” to newsletter@bcn2010.org

3

In addition to the honour of participating in this exciting selection of the official mascot for the 20th European Athletics Championships Barcelona 2010, any designers participating in with a chance of winning some interesting prizes.

Athletics, the favourite Sport from the Olympic Programme for the television audience

According to the Sofres social barometer, athletics is the most popular sport on the Olympic programme for Spanish people who are going to follow the coming Olympic Games of Beijing on television. Audience research shows that an impressive 46% of men surveyed stated this was their preferred sport, while 34% of the women surveyed listed athletics as their preference, ranking athletics as the second most popular behind swimming.

Most of the Spanish TV audience will follow the Olympic Games of Beijing on television. The most loyal viewers will be men, because 70% of those surveyed stated that they want to be informed about Olympic results by watching re-transmissions on TV, however the audience research indicates that there are more and more women who are keen on following this sport on television. In total 81% of the people surveyed declared an interested in the 2008 Olympic Games competitions. Sofres is a company from the TSN Sofres group (before called Gallup) second in the World for gathering opinion and market research. In Spain it does the everyday TV viewing figures for the general Spanish broadcasting companies. In total 81% of the people has declared to be interested in the 2008 Olympic Games competitions. Sofres is a company from the TSN Sofres group (before called Gallup) which is the second world company in opinion and marketing research. In Spain it does the everyday TV viewing figures for the general Spanish broadcasting companies. Sofres is a company from the TSN Sofres group (before called Gallup) which is the second world company in opinion and marketing research. In Spain it does the everyday TV viewing figures for the general Spanish broadcasting companies.

The opening ceremony will be held on August 8th at 20:00 hours local time, what means that in Spain it will be watched at lunch time. And the grand- finals will have the same inconvenient except for Swimming, whose programme has been adapted to the American time (main consumer), so they will have place in the morning in the Chinese capital and in the early morning in Spain.