Hannah Columnist
COCKROFT
On organising events while preparing for the World Para Athletics Championships
T
HE first ever Muller Para Track Grand Prix went really, really well – especially as we organised the whole thing in six weeks! We had 60 athletes competing in Kirkby, loads of people spectating and a world record broken there as well, which was pretty cool. It was also nice to get out of my own bed on a race morning for the first time ever. Muller were fantastic. We had yoghurts, foam fingers and t-shirts everywhere, and even had the ‘Muller-licious Moment of the Day’ with someone getting some prize money at the end of it, which is pretty unusual at para events and something quite special. We’ve had wonderful feedback and positive comments about the day and I’m already being asked when we are planning to do it next year. I’m not too sure if I can do it again – it was a massive learning curve for me. When we had this idea of putting a race meet on we didn’t really know what went into a race meet to be honest. There were so many parts of it that we just didn’t consider, like licences, getting the officials, getting insurance and so on. You think you can just book a track and that’s it, but it didn’t work out like that. We were constantly having to look for guidance throughout the whole organisation process. We know all that now, so if we were to do it again we’ve Agilitymagazine | 2
