Kadriorg Stadium preparing for two summer athletics competitions
The practice field of the Kadriorg Stadium, set to host two different junior's European championships events in July, had its track completely refitted on Thursday in preparation for the international competitions.
The recent warm weathers have contributed to the renovation works, which have been in process since fall of last year. The main arena at Kadriorg will see some work done to it to host the under-23s European championships on July 8-11 with the under-20s championships scheduled to take place exactly a week later.
Erich Teigamägi, president of the Estonian Athletics Association, gave ERR an overview of the works conducted on Kadriorg Stadium: "The main upgrades took place on the reserve field, where everything kicked off last fall. There was a complete renovation of the track cover and the main field - as for all competitions such as these ones - will have an additional long jump box constructed, which will be picked up after the competition. In addition, the run-up tracks for the javelin throw and pole jump will also be updated as they have degraded enough to not be worthy of championship competitions."
While preparations for the under-20s European championships have already been in process for more than two years, the European Athletics Association confirmed Estonia as the replacement host for the under-23s European championships just last week. The Estonian association is still awaiting a special government permit for the latter and has already received a permit for the former.
"I hope the special permit will be processed as procedure and considering that this under-23s competition will not differ greatly from the under-20s one, I hope we get this permit," Teigamägi said.
The Estonian Athletics Association held a small event to present the renovations to the Kadriorg Stadium on Thursday and said it hopes to put out a 20-member national team for the championships. The entry list for participants will be confirmed 10 days prior to the competitions.
"We especially expect world record owner Mondo Duplantis or Jakob Ingebrigtsen or someone like that, especially for the under-23s. It would certainly give this event more international attention," Teigamägi added.
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Editor: Kristjan Kallaste
