VCB donates 2004 Olympic Games winning vest to IAAF Heritage Collection
Jamaican sprint star Veronica Campbell-Brown, one of only two women in history to have twice won the Olympic 200 metres title, has become the latest global champion to give her support to IAAF Heritage.
The IAAF Heritage Collection, which aims to preserve and savour the best athletics moments to help promote the sport and better engage with fans, was launched by IAAF President Sebastian Coe in Birmingham on Sunday, March 4, 2018 on the last day of the IAAF World Indoor Championships.
During the past five months, IAAF Heritage, which is compiling the greatest ever collection of athletics artefacts and memorabilia, has been overwhelmed by the donations received from some of the greatest stars of the sport.
Campbell-Brown, the eight-time Olympic and eleven-time World championships medallist, has generously donated the Jamaican team vest in which she sprinted to 200m gold at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.
PERSONAL FOUNDATION
The donation to IAAF Heritage by Campbell-Brown, a UNESCO Champion for Sport ambassador whose personal foundation in Jamaica provides scholarships for high school girls to complete their secondary education, took place on Thursday, July 19 on the eve of the Herculis IAAF Diamond League meeting in Monaco.
“As champions, we must do everything we can to give back to the sport and help inspire the next generation of fans and athletes, which is why I’m donating my Olympic vest” said Campbell-Brown.
“However good the entertainment, it’s increasingly necessary for every sport to adjust, thus enabling new fans to gravitate towards it,” she added. “If we want our achievements and those of future champions to live in the memory for generations to come, we must support innovative ideas like IAAF Heritage. This collection will travel the world, using video, photos and artefacts like my vest to promote athletics.”
There is already an IAAF Heritage Exhibition currently under way in Ostrava, Czech Republic. The ‘IAAF Heritage World/Continental Cup – 1977 to 2018 – Exhibition’ which opened on June 5, as its name implies, celebrates the performances of the first competition which the IAAF created, the forerunner of the IAAF World Championships which began in 1983.