ESAA Sainsbury's English Schools'
Track & Field Championships 2007

Alexander Stadium, Birmingham

Friday 13th & Saturday 14th July 2007

Preliminary information

This page will be updated regularly in the run up to the Championships - depending on how your browser is set up you may need to click your refresh button to get the latest additions. (further info for AOL users.)

How to get there

You can find all things to do with the stadium from the Alexander Stadium website.

Click on the map for a detailed road map of the area and directions. Enter postcode B42 2LR as the destination to find detailed directions from your own home.

Travel directions are simple: Take the M6 to junction 7. Follow the A34 to Birmingham. The track is approximately 3 miles from junction 7.

Please contact the stadium staff about disabled access facilities - you can find details from the Alexander Stadium website as shown above.

New for this year

This year the Saturday afternoon Finals are to be televised live on Sky Sports. This is a major undertaking for the ESAA and requires a few changes to be made to the normal programme of events in order to provide the best viewing possible. It is anticipated that apart from showing the track events, at least 4 and possibly 5 field events will be covered live, although this will depend on the number of entries in each event. Exact details won't be known until after the closing date for entries at the end of June.

One change will be that presentations will only be made to the first 3 athletes in each Final, and these will be made in front of the stand, not in the centre of the arena. Other administrative changes need to be made in order for our officials to concentrate on providing good real-time information for the TV commentators. In particular, this year we will NOT be printing copies of field cards or wind speed cards at the event. These will be made available online, hopefully on the evening of each competition day, or at the very latest within a day or so of the event.

If anyone has any problem with their being shown on TV, they are advised not to take part - it is not possible to prevent any particular person from being in camera view.

Event Locations

Because of the size of the Championships, it is impossible to hold all field events within the arena. The Hammer and most Discus throws will be held in the fields adjacent to the Stadium. See the FAQs page for further details about this.

Timetable of Events

The timetable is now available - please click the link in the menu on the left. Please don't ask us what heat anyone is in, you won't get any reply.

All competitors will be issued with the full printed programme which will be on sale at the Championships. It is the ESAA policy not to publish the full programme on the website - sales of programmes with the sponsors' advertising they contain are a major source of income without which the Championships could not be held.

Please see the FAQs page for further details and answers to many other Frequently Asked Questions about the Championships.

Official Accreditation

Everyone at the event must carry either an accreditation pass, or a ticket. Anyone else will be refused admission to any area. Only officially accredited persons are allowed in restricted areas. Restricted areas include the following: Note that club coaches / family / friends etc. are not allowed in the restricted areas. Athletes are not allowed in the public stand areas unless they also have paid for a ticket for that area. Parents / friends wishing to meet athletes may do so in the open ground areas. Accreditation is limited to ESAA staff and pupil assistants, County team managers and their stewards, competing athletes, reporters from recognised press organisations, and officially appointed photographers. All others are required to buy a ticket - this includes club coaches, personal trainers etc.

Tickets

Tickets are required for entrance to any area. Tickets give access to the main stand (overlooking the finish straight), or the Nelson Stand (overlooking the start bend), and also give access to the ground, the back straight viewing area, and lower field. There are no ground-only tickets. There are no concessionary tickets: parents, teachers, club coaches, personal coaches etc. require a valid ticket for admission.
The ticket hotline is now closed - it is too late to send tickets through the post. You can buy tickets on the gate on arrival. In the event that stand tickets are all sold, there will still be plenty of space around the ground, however prices will remain the same.

Competition Rules

Please read the Competition Rules for information about weights, distances, heat and lane draws and all other things to do with the way events are run. You can find the rules from the reference section of the main menu. There are two sets of rules: General Rules for all competitions, and Rules for Track & Field Competitions, you need to read both sets.

Please see the FAQs page for further details and answers to many other Frequently Asked Questions about the Championships.

Permissible Clothing

The ESAA Competition Rule 7 [i.e. that applies to ALL ESAA competitions] on page 62 of the ESAA Handbook states:
  1. In all Championships competitors must wear at least vest and shorts (or equivalent clothing) in registered County Colours which are clean and so designed and worn, as not to be objectionable even if wet. All visible clothing must conform with registered County colours.

To deal with some specific queries therefore: The main problems in the past have been the wearing of cycle type shorts that are not in County colours, and worn under the correct coloured shorts but clearly visible. This especially applies to the boys where the cycle type shorts are longer that the County shorts. However, if the shorts are the lycra type and do not cover the knees then these are allowed, as long as they are in the registered County colours (ie. the same colour as the County colours, not an approximation to them).

With the meeting being televised this year, County team managers have been warned that ESAA will 'pull' athletes from an event if incorrectly attired.

Results

Results from the Championships appear on the website during the course of the competition. Links to them will appear in the menu on the left. Result pages will be updated approximately every two hours or so, but since this can only be done use mobile phone internet connections this cannot be guaranteed. AOL users won't be able to see updated results pages due to the way AOL operates their own page cacheing system - see the further info for AOL users.

PLEASE DO NOT TRY TO CONTACT US during the competition days. This is for a number of reasons:

  1. We won't have time to read or respond to mails during the days and evenings of the competition - we will be 150% occupied in running the event results systems and ensuring that the live TV is maintained with up to the second information.
  2. We are running from relatively slow mobile phone internet connections - any messages sent to us will simply clog up our ability to update results.
  3. The sort of queries we get are usually in the form
    • when will the results be published?
    • did our bart/lisa/kyle/wendy get into the final?
    • Which semi-final is our bart/lisa/kyle/wendy in?
Any and all queries like that will be deleted without replying.

Entry List of Athletes

Every effort is made to be accurate when typing athletes' names but inevitably some mistakes occur from time to time as names are passed on via many different people before they reach us. Names of all athletes nominated by their County are published here.

Please check that the spelling of names is correct as this information appears in the programme, on TV, on the scoreboard, on tee-shirts, and in the results.

If you find any error, please use the 'contact us' button on the main menu and give the correct spelling together with your County, age group, and event - corrections will be noted and our event files will be modified accordingly, but because of the high volume of other mail we get in the run up to the Championships we don't have time to acknowledge each mail individually. Any corrections received by Saturday evening 30th June should be in time to be included in the programme and on teeshirts. Corrections received after that time are too late for the programme and teeshirts, but will be included in the results / scoreboard / TV displays.

Click your County to view your team.
Avon,    Bedfordshire,    Berkshire,    Buckinghamshire,    Cambridgeshire,    Cheshire,    Channel Islands,    Cleveland,    Cornwall,    Cumbria,    Derbyshire,    Devon,    Dorset,    Durham,    Essex,    Gloucestershire,    Gtr Manchester,    Hampshire,    Hereford & Worcestershire,    Hertfordshire,    Humberside,    Kent,    Lancashire,    Leicestershire,    Lincolnshire,    London,    Merseyside,    Middlesex,    Northamptonshire,    Northumberland,    Norfolk,    Nottinghamshire,    North Yorkshire,    Oxfordshire,    Shropshire,    Somerset,    Staffordshire,    Suffolk,    South Yorkshire,    Surrey,    Sussex,    Warwickshire,    West Midlands,    West Yorkshire,    Wiltshire,   

Not Selected for your County team?

Over 1700 athletes are entered in the National Championships each year, but at least 2 or 3 times that number will probably be disappointed not to have been selected. PLEASE don't contact us to complain that you, your Bart, Lisa, Kyle, or Wendy, didn't make your County team. Team selection is entirely in the hands of each County Team Manager and the ESAA has no say in how or why teams are selected as they are. Sorry...but we simply cannot respond to hundreds of e-mails - please read the FAQs page which answers all the frequently asked questions.
In particular, please note that teams are strictly limited in the number of athletes they can select, and that ESAA entry standards are for guidance to team selectors - they are not trigger points for automatic selection. A full explanation of selection procedures and limitations is given in the FAQs page.

Team Travel Arrangements

The Championships are a team event, not an event for individuals. Athletes must travel with and remain with their team for the entire duration of the Championships. It is not permitted for them to travel with parents or others, nor to leave the team accommodation facilities. Athletes are under the care and control of teachers throughout the Championships. Further details relating to competing in ESAA events can be found in the Notes for Parents document.

Accommodation

Athlete accommodation is normally in hotels or University Halls of Residence, supervised by their team managers - the exact location will be contained in the the letter which will be sent to each team member by the County Team Manager.

These facilities are not open to the general public / friends / family. Athletes must remain with their team at all times - failure to comply with this rule will lead to disqualification from this event, and possibly future events too.

Official Merchandise


www.inprints.co.uk 		ESAA event tee-shirts, sweatshirts, and other items will be available at the event from our official suppliers Inprints/Sportserve.

After the event you can contact them via their websites.


www.sportserve.co.uk

Photographs

Photographs of ESAA events are published in the athletics press, local media, on this website, and this year on live TV. All ESAA photographs are taken in accordance with the guidelines relating to photos in schools published by the Information Commissioner with regard to the Data Protection Act 1998.

Photographs and videos can be taken by the public from public areas for personal use only. They may not be published in any form (including personal or club websites) without written permission from the ESAA.

Photographers at ESAA events wishing to publish photos in the media or in any other form (eg. internet websites), or wishing to use them for anything other than personal use must be officially registered and accredited by the ESAA. A list of officially accredited photographers will be published on this website shortly after the event along with their contact details.

Access to competition areas for the purpose of taking photographs is restricted to ESAA accredited photographers only. This rule will be strictly enforced.

It is not possible to prevent photographs of any particular individual from appearing in the media, nor on TV since the event is to be televised live. If this is a problem for you, you are advised not to take part in the event. If any parent wishes a particular picture of their child appearing on this website to be removed please contact us and we will do our best to resolve any problem.