The 2005 Shanghai Golden Grand Prix is an international outdoor athletics competition featuring some of the world’s leading athletes and is scheduled on Saturday, September 17 at Shanghai Stadium.

　　Adhering to strict IAAF rules and regulations, the 2005 Shanghai Golden Grand Prix was made possible through the generous help and support from the General Administration of Sport, China’s administrative national body, and Shanghai’s municipal government and other relevant sports departments.

　　The event was born after IAAF secretary general Istvan Gyulai sent a letter to Shanghai mayor Han Zheng and deputy Shanghai mayor, Yang Xiaodu, to confirm this event as China put itself in the forefront of world athletics.

　　Organisers were given permission to use the word “Golden’’ after through communications and negotiations with the IAAF and the Global Sports Communication (GSC). The event is now known as the 2005 Shanghai Golden Grand Prix.

　　The athletics meeting has been penciled in on the prestigious IAAF sports website calendar, confirming the event as China’s biggest and most important track and field meeting.

　　The IAAF will review the event upon completion of the event to assure the event is run to its highest standard, allowing the event to be run for another four years.

　　The IAAF has also agreed to hand out special “wildcards” for China’s top two athletes in each of the 14 disciplines.

　　The two main objectives of staging this international, world class event are first and foremost to put China on the world’s athletics map and secondly, to increase an awareness and interest of the event to the citizens of Shanghai and China as a whole.

　　The event is also being organised to help push China’s athletics sports to a higher level and raise the standard of local mainland athletes. The 2005 Shanghai Golden Grand Prix is also seen as the perfect warm-up for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, China’s most important sports event in history.

　　By staging the athletics event, Shanghai hopes to achieve its status as one of the world’s sports capitals, capable of hosting major events. The city has already achieved its status as a world class organiser of the Formula One championship, which will be run for a second straight year in October and Shanghai will also host the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Masters Cup in November.

　　The 2005 Shanghai Golden Grand Prix will most certainly lift the city’s image further as 15 world and Olympic champions test their mettle on September 17 at the 45,000-capacity Shanghai Stadium.

　　The General Administration of Sport, Chen Liangyu, Shanghai Party Secretary and Shanghai mayor Han Zheng acknowledges the event will mark China’s entrance to the big time of world athletics.

　　A spokesman for the Shanghai government announced in a press conference on March 31, 2005 that the event marks a milestone for China, knowing it was an extremely important event in China’s sporting history. Apart from hosting the Formula One championship and the Masters Cup, Shanghai also hosted the hugely successful World Table Tennis Championships, a round of the MotoGP and the V8 Supercar Championships as well as hosting world class golf.

　　It was only through the support from the General Adminstration of Sport and the city of Shanghai that these events managed to get off the ground, lifting Shanghai to a new level of sports excellence in organisation and management.

　　With the dizzying success of Liu Xiang golden triumph at last year’s Olympics in Athens, the Chinese media has taken a special interest in sports in general and the public has caught the imagination of sports owed much to it to Liu’s success on the international arena.

　　Global Sports Communication (GSC) was set up to commercialise and manage the 2005 Shanghai Golden Grand Prix to ensure its long-term success.

　　Shanghai Golden Grand Prix Co., Ltd. is the investing company of this event. Members of the board room includes: Shanghai Dragon Investment Co., Ltd., Starz International Sports Management Co., Ltd., Taihe Entertainment Investment Co., Ltd.

　　The event is under the expert care of world-renowned sports management agent and Event Director, Jos Hermens, a former world 10,000 metre record holder who founded Global Sports Communication, one of the world’s biggest athletics management groups, in 1985. Mr Hermens is also vice president of International Associations of Athletes’ Managers and CEO of Global Sports Communication. Senior event operator Ferdy Geermos has been assigned as Technical Director of this event.

　　Combining sports with entertainment, the 2005 Shanghai Golden Grand Prix not only hopes to attract mass public interest as its gains commercial success but it also hopes to attract famous brand names, who will take this opportunity to promote their products, while promoting the city as a whole.

　　Organisers hope to make Shanghai a truly successful and magnificent event in its inaugural year. It is hoped that Shanghai will become the most successful athletics event in Asia this year, achieving truly global status within five years.

　　ENDS