Athletics

Team GB has extended its current partnership with Aldi by a further four years to 2025.

The continued agreement with the British Olympic Association will see Aldi support Team GB through a third Olympic cycle – Paris 2024, making it one of Team GB’s longest-serving partners. 

Since the partnership began in 2015, Aldi’s Get Set to Eat Fresh initiative has reached over 810,000 young people (aged 5 to 14 years) in the UK. Teaching home cooking skills and the importance of eating fresh, healthy food, the programme is on track to reach 1.2 million young people by 2020.   

British Athletics has announced an extended agreement with dairy brand Müller through to 2021, taking the total length of the partnership to six years.

Under the new deal, Müller will become title partner of the 2019 British Championships in Birmingham at the end of August, while continuing to support the Great Britain and Northern Ireland team and other British Athletics’ televised events.

Talent management agency Benchmark Talent has relaunched as thinkBeyond Talent, building on 20 years’ experience to provide a new and distinct service to the talent management and strategy marketplace. The relaunch sees a repositioning to focus on supporting athletes towards a career underpinned by social values within the context of the growing power of the athlete voice and rise in cause marketing.

Swiss timepiece brand Hublot has announced Britain’s fastest sprinter Dina Asher-Smith as its latest sporting talent ambassador.

Asher-Smith, the fastest woman in the world in 2018, joins the Hublot roster of fellow sporting figures, which includes former track star Usain Bolt, World Cup winning footballers Kylian Mbappé and Pelé, golfers Dustin Johnson and Justin Rose and former international cricketer Michael Clarke.

London agency Fifty Digital has been appointed to lead the digital and social media output of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

The win will see the Soho-based agency help activate the IAAF’s social channels, engage with the worldwide athletics community and drive digital growth for the international governing body of the sport.

CSM Active executive chairman Jon Ridgeon has been appointed as the new CEO of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

The two-time British Olympian, a former sprint hurdles world medalist, will take up his new position at the Monaco-based body in March.

Ridgeon, 51, who has headed up the active lifestyle division of CSM Sport and Entertainment for the past two years, will replace Frenchman Olivier Gers in the role.

Triple European sprint champion Dina Asher-Smith has thrown her weight behind England Athletics’ new #gocoach campaign, which is aiming to attract 10,000 new coaches to the sport by 2020.

The star, who ends 2018 as the joint-fastest woman in the world, has been coached since the age of nine by John Blackie at Blackheath & Bromley Harriers Athletics Club.

SPAR has teamed up with European sprint champion Dina Asher-Smith, as part of a community-focussed activation of its British Athletics partnership.

The convenience store brand’s People’s Podium campaign is designed to recognise and reward individuals supporting community sport. 

Triple Berlin 2018 gold-medallist Asher-Smith was on-hand to present winner Zahra Butt with her award at the Müller Grand Prix Birmingham. 

Double Olympic champion Daley Thompson has celebrated his 60th birthday by opening a pop-up gym in London with Worldwide Olympic Partner Bridgestone.

The decathlete, a 1980s icon, teamed up with the global tyre brand as part of a campaign to encourage people to keep moving and chasing their dreams, whatever their age.

European Athletics has agreed a new deal with its long-time worldwide media rights partner, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

The agreement will extend a relationship which began in 1981 to 2027, reflecting the continental rightsholder’s commitment to free-to-air coverage of its properties.

Major events covered by the extended contract are the Paris 2020 European Athletics Championships and the subsequent three editions of the event – including those in 2022 and 2026 which will form part of a multi-sport championships.