1st October 2013 10:00
Find out more about the event at the local organising committee website here.
Ahead of the 20th edition of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships, the President of the host Member Federation, the Athletics Federation of Serbia, Veselin Jevrosimovic, said the following:
'In my role as President of the Athletics Federation of Serbia, I have a great honor and privilege to welcome all of you to Belgrade for the 20th SPAR European Cross Country Championships in December 2013.
This highly regarded competition is one of the most prominent events in our sport scheduled for the next year and you can take my word as a guarantee that Belgrade will be ready to be the best host anyone can hope for.
The Championships will be the most significant athletics competition that Belgrade has organised since 1969, so you can be sure we are taking this opportunity extremely seriously and working very hard to complete all the preparations in time.
Our recent track record regarding organisation of international athletic events is quite impressive. In 2009, Serbia hosted the European Athletics Junior Championships, followed by the European Athletics Team Championships 2nd League and European Athletics Convention in 2010 and European Athletics Team Championships in 2011.
We see the upcoming SPAR European Cross Country Championships as the crown of our efforts to revive athletics in our country and put Serbia on the map of European sports, where it rightfully belongs. Based on the previous experiences, we firmly believe that our organisational capacities are sufficient to handle this responsibility in appropriate manner and all of you will be in position to evaluate our hospitality, level of technical aptitude and dedication to precision and punctuality.
It is our hope that organisation of a major event like the one European Athletics entrusted us with in 2013 can be a key driver of athletics popularity in the country and can bring us in closer contact with the larger European family of sports professionals and enthusiasts. You can rest assured that Athletics Federation of Serbia, along with countless employees and volunteers engaged on this task, will do everything within our power to make your stay at the SPAR European Cross Country Championships worth remembering and telling about.
I look forward to meeting all of you next year in Belgrade and showing you the best contemporary Serbia has to offer.