BEIJING, China - With the 2008 Olympics set to be staged here in the Chinese capital, track and field's governing body, the IAAF, is reporting that a record 300-plus media houses are covering its 11th staging of the World Junior Championships.

"This is not a normal World Juniors," said Anna Legnani, deputy head of communications with the IAAF during an interview with the Observer on yesterday's second day of competition.

According to the press delegate, the event being staged in the same city that will host the Olympics in two years makes a big difference.

"We have a lot more international media attending the event than would normally come over... and we also have huge interest on the part of the Chinese media, so we have a total of over 350 accredited media - 250 press and that is quite a lot to handle - as usually for a World Junior
Championship we would have about 200 accreditations. So it is almost twice as big."

This is the second administrative record at these championships, as a record 182 of the IAAF's 212-member federations are currently taking part in the six-day meet, which has been in existence for 20 years.

"We have at least 25 countries including a lot of people who are correspondents of the big international media organistions...

"Before, even if an event was held in a big city like in 1996 in Sydney, we had the World Juniors four years prior to the Olympics, but we didn't have nowhere near the interest that we are having here in Beijing."

Legnani disclosed that putting together the event demanded a lot of planning, from accreditation and accommodation to transport.

"With the organising committee we went through every single point that concerns the media. This is a complex event to organise because it's staged over six days.

"The number of competitors is really comparable to an outdoor (senior) World Championship and it is not an easy event to stage," he explained.

Jamaica has been a fixture in the World Junior Championships, having won medals on every occasion since the event started in 1986 in Greece.

However, the IAAF's deputy head of communications revealed that her best memory in the history of the games came four years ago in Kingston.

"What was really amazing in the 2002 edition, and I still have goose bumps just thinking about it, was the atmosphere in the stadium. It was absolutely packed - 36,000 spectators.

"I've been working in athletics organisation for almost 20 years and I've never seen such enthusiasm. I had never seen people climbing over walls to get into the stadium because it was packed and we had this on the last three days in Kingston and when everybody was singing the national anthem, just thinking about it makes me get all emotional again... it was an incredible feeling, it was really something wild."

Led by Usain Bolt, Jamaica secured a record 11 medals at that meet - two gold, five silver, four bronze.

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