Could/Should Ireland host the European track champs

TheRoadRunner

I'm going to go all Gay Mitchell (Mr Olympic bid) here and ask could we host the Euro championships.

Last week I would have said definitely not as we don't have a decent athletics stadium to take the crowds. However watching the event on television the sparsity of the crowds really struck me. Even last night during the 100 metre final the stadium looked less than 1/4 full. On reflection the crowds at euro track champs has been pretty poor in recent history.

In theory if Santry had a decent stand erected on the back straight where the terrace currently is we would have than enough seats to take the crowds attending the event in Barcelona.

What do people think? would it excite you? It definitely excite me but probably not the general public. The lack of cash for the second stand would also be a major problem.

thirtyfoot

I'd say no chance. Even with a stand on the back stretch you might only be 10k capacity. Also, there would not be the interest from the public. I'd say hosting a jun or u23 champs would be exciting from my perspective.

Pisco Sour

The capacity is 55k and there were 28k there last night the announcer said, and I believe saturday and sunday nights are very close to being sold out.

Only way of us holding the Euros is to put a temporary track into Croke Park.

Santry is not even an option and it would be an insult to the Europeans.

And last time around in 2006 at Gotenburg, it sold out every single day.

drrunner

The issues of an appropriate and adequate facility is the first thing that should be looked at as you point out!

However, Ireland is not in a position to think about hosting a Euro Track C'Ships for lots of reasons

- Finance - the Euro Cross last Dec which is a minnow in comparison failed financially. No sponsors of significance showed any interest and given the economic environment and current reputation of the potential host organisation, none would be forthcoming for this potential event.

- Org capacity - again Euro Cross stretched the LOC to its limit - it would be extremely naive to think that this would be within their capacity. A forerunner of an event of this nature would be several years experience running a very successful Grand Prix event (and full credit to Cork, but something much bigger than that would be required) or an U23 or Junior international c'ships.

- Initial bid - the amount of work and expertise and even finance behind an initial bid is not available.

- The facility requirement is strictly specified and no Irish facility would meet the standard.

Sadly, at this point in time, it is a pipe dream! It would take long term vision and competence to potentially be in a position to host this event in 10 to 15 years time. AAI probably have some other fundamental issues to address before thinking about a project like this

myflipflops

We fall down at the first hurdle - we do not have an athletics facility with a proper warm up track.

I've been to events where the warm up facility is better than anything available in Ireland.

shels4ever

Was thinking the saem thing today, Would be great to see and if it was planned well there is no reason why they couldnt do santry up into a 30,000 stadium...

Wasnt the Bertie bowl going to have a track?


The temp track in Corke park could be an option as there should be enough space there to fit .

TheRoadRunner

Tingle wrote: »

I'd say no chance. Even with a stand on the back stretch you might only be 10k capacity. Also, there would not be the interest from the public. I'd say hosting a jun or u23 champs would be exciting from my perspective.

yeah I was just playing devils advocate.

I realsie we don't have the facilities and if we didn't manage to get them when the country was swimming in dosh we have feck all chance now. However other federations use championships to push to boat out and build these facilities so that was my thinking. I think you are right though the interest from the public wouldn't be there.

TheRoadRunner

04072511 wrote: »

The capacity is 55k and there were 28k there last night the announcer said, and I believe saturday and sunday nights are very close to being sold out.

Wow it didn't look that full at all, if the capacity is 55k I would have guessed 15K, 18k max.

RoyMcC

It would be great to adopt a 'can do' attitude and to believe it can be done, never mind the obstacles. It's amazing what a collective positive mindset can achieve.

But, for all the reasons set out above the concept fails at a very early stage.