Miller invites athletes to celebrate world athletics day

World athletics day will be celebrated this Friday at the National stadium, Suva.

The annual event is dedicated to celebrating young people across the world in athletics and being active.

Speaking to SUNsports yesterday former athlete champion and coach Albert Miller Senior said the worldwide programme basically commemorates the 50th year which will also include the kids’ athletics programme.

“Almost every country in the world is celebrating or commemorating achievements. Most of us are just targeting the younger generation, younger kids, kindergarten, you know, five, six or even up to class three, or even up to class eight to turn up,” he said.

Miller said they are inviting all the kids on holiday now to be part of this initiative or the commemoration on Friday.

He said the event is significant and they will be working with Athletics Fiji and the Ministry of Education.

“This is something that we are working with Athletics Fiji and also with the Ministry of Education, hoping that we can include it as part of the PE curriculum in the country, something we’ve been trying to initiate over the years. So hopefully by exposing it to members of the public, we’ll be able to push this initiative to the Minister of Education,” he said.

Miller said it was an opportu-nity for young athletes to be exposed to athletics, the foundation of all sports, where they learn basic movement skills needed for athletics and other sports later in life.

He is also encouraging parents and guardians to bring their children and be part of the event.

“We are inviting everybody and anybody, especially parents, to come and, and bring their kids and be part of it because some of the kids will be pretty shy. Older participants can walk their kids through the activities.

“These are very basic activities, nothing too challenging.

“It’s based on fun and development, physical development of the athletes and just exposing them to be part of a programme initiated by World Athletics,” he said.