As organisers round the bend into the preparation home straight, interest is building for the European DNA U20 Clubs event in Castellón, Spain, 17-18 September.
Billed as the Clash of the Clubs, the meeting hosted by the local club Playas de Castellón, European Athletics and the Royal Spanish Athletic Federation (RFEA) will be the first-ever international U20 competition using the Dynamic New Athletics format.
Top clubs from 11 countries have confirmed the participation of 18-athlete (9 men / 9 women ) teams totalling more than 200 young athletes.
The two-day tournament of four 2.5 hour, 12-event matches (two semi-finals on Day 1 then A and B finals on Day 2) will take place in Castellón’s Complejo Deportive Gaetà Huguet.
World Athletics has confirmed that the event is rated Category D for World Ranking points.
European Athletics has launched a promotional campaign on social media that will see clubs, competitors and the federations share content to Instagram and TikTok using the hashtags
#AthleticsWithAttitude and #DNACastellon.
The aims of the campaign are to highlight the participating athletes to their local communities and reach a young demographic likely to consume the livestream of the event on their smartphones.
Preview articles will also be published on www.dna.run and the websites of European Athletics and the Member Federations of the participating clubs.
“We are thrilled with the enthusiasm shown so far by the clubs and athletes,” said European Athletics Vice President Libor Varhanik, who leads the DNA project steering group.
“For most of them this will be the first chance to test themselves abroad and gain world ranking points, really a unique experience, and for us it is a chance to understand more about our target audience in the participating countries.”
DNA is a mixed-gender team concept developed by European Athletics. Its key features include one discipline taking place at a time in the arena, head-to-head competition in the field events and a final team ranking determined by the result of the last race in the match (the “Hunt” medley relay), which starts from a stagger based on the points gained in the first 11 events.
In the coming days European Athletics and the RFEA will announce the dates for an online conference to analyse the results of Castellón and develop plans for the continued roll-out of DNA in 2023, which is likely to include international top-clubs events for U20 senior category athletes.
Athletes, club leaders and other interested members of the athletics community are invited to join the conference, ask questions and learn more about DNA.
For further information on the conference and the DNA project, see www.dna.run.