World Class Athletes Ready To Rock AIT International Grand Prix

World Class Athletes Ready to Rock AIT International Grand Prix

The Canadian World Pole Vault Champion, Shawn Barber, has confirmed his attendance at the third annual AIT International Grand Prix. Barber made an impressive start to the season by setting a lifetime best of 6.00m at the Pole Vault Summit in Reno. This year’s AIT event is scheduled for Wednesday, 17th of February with doors opening at 6pm.

Another major medalist who has confirmed their intention to compete in AIT is 800m specialist Melissa Bishop. Bishop is the current outdoor world championship silver medalist with a PB of 1:57.52.

Barber and Bishop will be joined by 2012 European 200m Champion Churandy Martina (Ned) who will compete in the 60m. His PB in this event is 6.58 seconds which is two hundredths of a second faster than the AIT International Arena stadium record set by Winston Barnes (Jam) last year.

German Gese Krause will be back again to try and break the stadium record (4.12.46) she set last year in the women’s 1500m. Krause is the current world championship bronze medalist in the 3000m Steeplechase.

Other big names will confirm in the coming weeks for what is building up to be another star-studded evening in the midlands venue. The 2015 event was the greatest indoor athletics event ever hosted in Ireland. Seven stadium records were broken, multiple all-comers record’s fell, Mutaz Essa Barshim made three attempts at the world indoor high jump record while breaking his own Asian record, and Ben Blankenship ran the first ever sub four minute mile indoors in Ireland.

AIT president, Prof Ciarán Ó Catháin, said: “We have a really top field of athletes lined up again for the grand prix next month. In fact, the fields this year will be filled with a deeper level of talent than we have ever had. We are very excited about the event as are many Athletics fans in Ireland. Ticket prices are very competitive again this year. There are not many events in the world where you will witness such top class sportspeople at such prices.”

Tickets for the AIT International Arena Grand Prix can be purchased online at www.aitsport.ie, priced at €20 and €10.