Each day during the IAAF World Championships, Beijing 2015 fans from around the world had the opportunity to vote for their favourite performances of the session via the IAAF website http://www.iaaf.org.
Fans inside the Bird’s Nest stadium could also vote live via WeChat (a Chinese social media channel).
The nine winners of the daily vote were then pooled together for a ‘champion of champions’ vote, which was open from Monday 31 August until Friday 4 September, for fans around the world to vote via the IAAF World Championships, Beijing 2015 page and spikes.iaaf.org
Almaz Ayana’s stunning triumph over her Ethiopian compatriot and 1500m winner Genzebe Dibaba in the 5000m received 23.84% of the overall votes and she wins Performance of the Championships, powered by adidas.
The vote for the top three performances were completed by Ashton Eaton’s decathlon world record on Day 8 (17.15%) and Dafne Schippers’ championship record 200m run on Day 7 (14.68%).
Ayana will be invited to the World Athletics Gala in November to receive a special Golden Shoe award from adidas.
In exactly one year the IAAF World Championships, Beijing 2015 will commence.
IAAF President Lamine Diack who is presently in China attending the Youth Olympic Games in Nanjing, flew into Beijing today to attend the ‘One Year Countdown Ceremony’.
President Diack was joined by Wang Anshun, Mayor of the Beijing Municipal Government and Liu Peng, China’s Minister of Sport Administration Bureau and President of the Chinese Olympic Committee, along with other distinguished national and city officials representing the member federation and local organising committee.
The IAAF delegation at the ceremony also included General Secretary Essar Gabriel.
A giant countdown clock was unveiled outside the National Stadium, better known as the world famous ‘Bird’s Nest’ which hosted the 2008 Olympic Games. The stadium will be the venue for the nine-day championships from 22 to 30 August 2015.
Introduced at the public ceremony were the official Championships poster and mascot.
“China is the emerging super power of athletics,” commented President Diack.
“For me, this is a source of satisfaction because I came myself to China in the 1970s to help China return to the IAAF Family. This happened in 1978 and, since then, the strength of athletics in this vast country of one billion people has steadily grown.”
“The IAAF World Championships, Beijing 2015, will further inspire the youth of China and Asia to take part in Athletics. This will be the greatest legacy of these Championships.”
IAAF launches Chinese edition of SPIKES and social media
SPIKES (spikes.iaaf.org) has been part of the IAAF website since February this year and with one year to go until the World Championships in Beijing, it marks the perfect moment for SPIKES to embrace the passion China has for our sport.
SPIKES China (spikescn.iaaf.org) will help build excitement leading into the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Guiyang, China next March and then on to Beijing and beyond.
In addition, SPIKES China will be active on WeChat (ID: SpikesChina), a popular app available for all smartphones that allows activities such as text, voice and broadcast messaging as well as the sharing of photographs and videos.
WeChat has 300 million users, with 70 million outside of China.
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