World Athletics Day celebrated in New Zealand

New Zealand held several activities over the weekend as part of the celebrations for World Athletics Day.

Athletics Otago ran a Kids Cross Country event, the first of the Athletics Otago Kids Cross Country series. Primary and Intermediate school children from the region were invited to take part in the event. Eighty eight children between five and thirteen years old participated in the event, competing in age grades over a distance of 800m to 2.5km. The cross country course was set out over sports fields and forest trails.

IAAF Kids Athletics Activities were also set up close to the start line. Children participating in the cross country event enjoyed running, jumping and throwing with the IAAF Kids Athletics gear as part of their warm up. Despite the cold wind and families joined in with pole vaulting, cross hopping, boulder heaving, and relay activities. The kids even started making up their own variations on activities with the provided gear.

Sport Otago sponsored spot prizes in addition to the IAAF drink bottles and bracelets.

In Wellington they also celebrated World Athletics Day with the start of the Kids Cross Country Series, back again for its fourth year running. Almost 500 kids took part in an awesome day at Karori Park.

Well done to both Otago and Wellington on the successful start of their Kids Cross Country series and for promoting World Athletics Day.

Two other regions will be celebrating World Athletics Day later in the month. All the best for Canterbury and Waikato for their events.

- This story has been automatically published using a media release from Athletics New Zealand