Weltklasse Zürich - new logo 2007 (© c)
This year’s Weltklasse ZürichIAAF Golden League - will be held in the brand-new Letzigrund Stadium on 7 September 2007. Many things will be new at the largest one-day event of Switzerland, lifting the legendary meeting to new, even higher levels.
The Letzigrund Stadium has been famous for offering the annual, ultimate athletics experience for a long time, and the work on the new arena is progressing at top speed, breaking the first stadium record of the new era.
The new Organizing Committee of Weltklasse Zürich feels indebted to the city of Zurich for the enormous efforts. President of the Organizing Committee, Patrick Magyar, leaves no room for doubt: “This is the most beautiful athletics arena ever built - and to us, it is at the same time a wonderful gift and a great obligation to meet the new Letzigrund Stadium’s standards in each and every area of our organization.”
“We are working to put together the meeting that will set the standards: the meeting with the best athletes, the hottest and most thrilling duels, and of course, the meeting with the best and most enthusiastic audience in the world. To achieve this goal, we will introduce some fundamental innovations,” continued Patrick Magyar.
New Website - New logo
Weltklasse Zürich has a new logo (as shown above) and a new website - www.weltklassezuerich.ch – and as well as the latest news about the meeting viewers can watch updates of the stadium’s progress via a choice of two webs cams –
Camera One
Camera Two
Fewer events – Breathtaking duels
“Our event philosophy calls for more time per event and athlete”, explains Andreas Hediger, Technical Director at Weltklasse Zürich. And he continues to specify that in order to live up to this credo, and also to promote technical events efficiently, the amount of events will be reduced from 23 to 17. “We would like to stage attractive competitions and breathtaking duels, which you rarely see in record races. In order to promote tough competitions further, Weltklasse Zürich will not include any pacemakers in the races in future.”
Major increase in Prize Money
The overall amount to be awarded in prize money will be increased to 1.4 million US dollars, an increase of 50 %, and will make Weltklasse Zürich the best endowed meeting in the world. This considerable adjustment will be achieved by re-allocating part of the budget for appearance fees to the more performance-oriented prize money system. In addition, Weltklasse Zürich will treat all events equally: races and field events, men’s and women’s events will all be eligible for the same prize money schedule.
Zürich Trophy
An exception will be made for the new final exclamation mark to the meeting programme - the Zürich Trophy: Eight national teams in their national uniforms - among them of course the Swiss team - will compete in a 4x100m relay and thereby present the audience with an exciting and emotional final highlight of the evening.
Support programme - Promotion of national talents
The supporting programme of Weltklasse Zürich will be shortened and will focus on providing a platform for rising Swiss athletes. “National athletes, who compete at international performance level, but do not yet fulfil the standards for a classic Weltklasse Zürich A race will receive an ideal opportunity to compete against equal opponents”, reasons Patrick Magyar.
Capturing and fully enjoying all performances
Not only does the new stadium live up to all standards, the state-of-the-art infrastructure will also allow a whole range of new opportunities for the presentation of the meeting. “We strongly believe in our duty to present our rather complex sport in an attractive manner, so that the audience can capture and fully enjoy all performances”, explains Andreas Hediger. “There will be a special TV production for the two giant screens, and also an infield speaker to guide the audience through the action in the arena. In addition, both the audience in the stadium and TV viewers at home will benefit from virtual graphics and a modern format of two hours.”
Ticket offers
The Letzigrund audience has a reputation among the athletes for being the best in the world. This unique relationship shall prevail in the new stadium. In order to enable even more young people and track and field athletes to be part of the action on 7 September, Weltklasse Zürich and Swiss Athletics, the national federation, will launch a special ticket offer, containing a ticket contingent. This package will be offered in co-operation with the Weltklasse Zürich sponsors UBS, Erdgas Ostschweiz and Migros.
Family ticket packages will also enable families to be there live, at affordable rates. These packages are a sign of gratitude for the people in Zurich and will be available within the city only.
In the past, it was not easy to get hold of a Weltklasse Zürich ticket for athletics fans - for seating tickets, it was virtually impossible. This will now finally change for the better: A total of 21,500 seats will be available in the new stadium - 10,000 tickets more than in the past. The standing area instead has been reduced to 5000 (compared to 11,000 in the past). Seating ticket rates for the seating area start at 60 Swiss francs, tickets for the standing area will cost 30 Swiss francs. All tickets will be on sale as of April and can be ordered at www.weltklassezuerich.ch. Patrick Magyar warns, however, that the huge demand suggests that the tickets may be sold out very quickly.
Programme of Events at Weltklasse Zürich 2007
IAAF Golden League Jackpot events:
Women: 100m, 400m, 100m h, HJ, PV
Men: 100m, 1500m, 110m h, TJ, JT
Other Events:
Women: 800m (or 800m men), 1500m
Men: 200m, 800m (or 800m women), 3000m, 4x100m relay (Zürich Trophy)