There has been a phenomenal level of entries received from the Member Federations of the IAAF for the 11th edition of the IAAF World Junior Championships, Beijing, China.

Last month we were pleased to announce that a total of 179 nations had submitted preliminary team entries to compete in Beijing’s impressive Chaoyang Sport Centre facility from 15 – 20 August 2006.

Now with the Final Entry Deadline passed (as of 31 July, midnight, Monaco time) the IAAF is delighted to confirm that an unprecedented total, for this junior competition, of 182 countries will send teams to the championships. This is a particularly notable figure considering that the IAAF has a total of 212 Member Federations.

The next greatest number of participating teams for this IAAF World Athletics Series event, which were inaugurated in 1986, was the 170 countries that competed at the 1998 edition in Annecy, France.

Number of participating nations at each of the previous editions of the World Junior Championships:

’86 Athens – 143 nations
’88 Sudbury – 122
’90 Plovdiv – 86
’92 Seoul – 90
’94 Lisbon – 143
’96 Sydney – 143
’98 Annecy – 170
’00 Santiago – 152
’02 Kingston – 159
’04 Grosseto – 168