26th June 2012 00:13
European Athletics is pleased to present a brief compilation of facts and figures from the Helsinki 2012 European Athletics Championships.
• 1,342 athletes (738 men, 604 women) from 50 countries are entered for the championships.
• This is only the second time ever that all 50 European Athletics Member Federations countries will be represented at the European Athletics Championships.
• 15 individual defending European champions (5 men: Lemaitre, Farah, Mekhissi, Lavillenie, Charfreitag, Thorkildsen, 9 women: Sailer, Soumare, N. Fernandez, Yanit, Radevica, Saladukha, Perkovic, Heidler, Stahl) will compete in Helsinki. Christophe Lemaitre is a double champion at 100m & 200m.
• 40 individual European champions will be crowned over the 5 days of the competitions.
• There is set to be over 1,075 hours of coverage (over 950 hours of live coverage) on 38 television channels across Europe and outside the continent.
• National broadcasters from 29 European countries will be showing the event and pan-European channel Eurosport plans to show the majority of the championships live across its 59 territories.
• The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has ensured extensive coverage of the event worldwide, with all production being handled by EBU subsidiary EPC (Eurovision Production Coordination SA) in partnership with Finnish EBU Member YLE.
• The broadcast intentions show the value broadcasters attach to a European Athletics Championships. The new biennial format for the event will now give broadcasters the chance to increase the visibility of athletics even more.
• Helsinki 2012 will be the biggest athletics event of the year before the Olympics, with a broad range of European broadcasters giving the majority on the continent the chance to watch the Championships live on television.
• Outside Europe, the event will be broadcast by BandSports in Brazil, PCTV in Mexico, SuperSport in Sub-Saharan Africa, Dubai Sports Channel in the Middle East and North Africa and Eurosport Asia.
• In a partnership with principal sponsor SPAR, European Athletics will stream live worldwide from its website (www.european-athletics.org) the Helsinki 2012 European Athletics Championships with English-language commentary.
• More than 300 written press have been accredited and this number is still going up ... over 140 photographers have been accredited ... 438 international TV and Radio broadcasting staff have been accredited ... not to forget the 215 broadcasting staff from host broadcaster!
• There will be over 1,700 volunteers!
• The European Athletics Championships in Helsinki would not have been possible without the support of our international partners SPAR, OMEGA, EUROVISION and LE GRUYERE AOC. Let us also not forget the national partners, city authorities and the wonderful staff of the LOC of Helsinki, European Athletics and thousands of volunteers who have put their heart and soul into preparing for these championships.