Dear ladies and gentlemen,

it is a great pleasure to have the honour to welcome you again this year in Velenje. The best runners from the Old Continent competed here already in 1999 and the fact that we are once again hosting the European Cross Country Championships surely proves that the first one was organised well. Velenje is known for big sporting events such as the Slovenian Open Table Tennis Tournament, the International Athletic Meeting, and the Ski Jumping Competition and so on.

These events traditionally take place here due to successful organisation, hospitality and never the less, the pleasant atmosphere in the city. We believe that our activities in the field of environmental protection and care for the environment also contributed to this.

The municipality of Velenje received numerous awards and distinctions in this regard. It was chosen to be »The Best Kept City in Slovenia« for several times, and in addition to that it received an award for the most energy-efficient municipality in Slovenia and won the title of »The Greenest Municipality in Slovenia«. The environment which is being well taken care of creates good conditions for development of tourism which represents one of the most important branches of economy. Velenje offers numerous features of natural and cultural heritage. I would like to invite you to visit them and I hope you would leave us full of nice impressions and that you would all wish to come back again. Velenje is also known to be a city of sports due to the excellent world-level results achieved by many of our athletes. Their remarkable success also contributed to the idea of carrying out a complex renovation of sport and recreation zone nearby lake Velenje. Last year the municipality of Velenje and the Slovenian Chamber of Architecture and Spatial Planning undertook a tendering process to find architectural and urbanistic solutions for Velenje Sports Park. In this way the best architectural solutions that would allow a suitable organisation of the sports park programme were chosen. We will thus be able to improve the area surrounding the city stadium and create conditions for new sports challenges.

Dear participants and dear visitors of the European Cross Country Championships, I wish you all a pleasant stay in our city. I wish you would experience many beautiful moments and obtain many good results.

Welcome and good luck!

Messsage from the President

I am very much looking forward to Velenje hosting the 2011 SPAR European Cross Country Championships.

I recall the punishing conditions that challenged some of Europe’s best cross country runners at the 1999 championships and made for some great races.

It was at that event Portugal’s Paulo Guerra won the third of his four senior men’s titles to confirm his place as one of the continent’s greatest cross country runners.

And so we return to the Slovenian mining city on 11 December.

European Athletics delegations have visited Velenje in preparation for the 18th edition of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships and have seen the impressive lake-side location of the cross country course. I have been assured that early preparations are going well in Velenje and I look forward to a memorable event.

The discipline of cross country is growing to be an ever more important part of athletics during the winter months. Cross country brings together athletes from the middle distances up to the marathon in the same race and provides a special challenge as the running surface can change according to the weather conditions.

The SPAR European Cross Country Championships are always an exciting and interesting competition, with the added dimension of also being a team event. The combination of the beauty of the local Velenje environment and the natural obstacles on the course will provide a memorable experience for athletes, officials and fans alike.

I would like to thank in advance the Slovenia Athletics Federation and the Velenje 2011 Local Organising Committee for their hard work now and in the future with regards to the organisation of the championships.

I hope that Velenje 2011 continues the success story of the SPAR European Cross Country Championships and I look forward to meeting Europe’s cross country family in December 2011 in Slovenia.

Hansjörg Wirz

European Athletics President

Velenje will host the SPAR European Cross Country Championships for the second time. This is again an honour, an immense responsibility and a great challenge.

Athletics is a truly wonderful sport and European Athletics is doing outstanding work for the development and promotion of our sport. This reflects in the organizational level required for all European Athletics events.

In Velenje we have the experience in organizing athletics events; however organizing a huge event again brings a lot of new responsibilities and the need for new skills.

In Velenje we will do our absolute best to organize a great event, such as our sport deserves, and we believe that we will meet the high expectations of all who anticipate a memorable 18th SPAR European Cross Country Championships in Velenje.

Velenje is excited to take this opportunity to confirm its reputation as a sports town and to offer all visitors a wonderful experience during their stay in Velenje.

We strongly believe that athletics fans in Slovenia and in the host town of Velenje will endorse the event and again confirm their passion for athletics by supporting the athletes in large numbers on the second Sunday in December 2011.

MSC. Marjan Hudej

18th SPAR European Cross Country Championships Velenje 2011

LOC President