Ivo Van Damme (© Getty Images)
Plaque name: Memorial Van Damme
Location: Avenue de Marathon 135, Bruxelles, Belgium , 1020
Event discipline: One Mile
Plaque awarded: 21/11/2019
Reason: Plaque categories - Legend and Competition
Memorial Van Damme, Brussels, Belgium
At the 1976 European Indoor Championships in Munich, Belgian Ivo Van Damme took the 1500m gold medal.
That summer in Montreal, the 22-year-old Ivo raced to impressive Olympic silver medals at 800m and 1500m behind Alberto Juantorena and John Walker.
Tragically, Ivo died in a car crash that same year. In 1977, a group of Belgian sports writers led by Wilfred Meert organised the Memorial Van Damme meeting in his memory.
The meeting went on to part of the Golden Four, Golden League and today the Diamond League. I had the honour of setting the meeting's first world record in 1981.