Tadese is the biggest ‘pin-up’ for Edinburgh school kids

Edinburgh, Scotland - Tomorrow at 11.30hrs GMT, at the Omni leisure complex on Edinburgh’s Greenside Place, the latest promotion for the 36th IAAF World Cross Country Championships (30 March) will take place.

Zersenay Tadese, the 2007 IAAF World Cross Country champion who has a national standing in Eritrea in excess of David Beckham’s in the UK, will be unveiled as the 12m high centrepiece of the 68m x 18m promotional advert, which sits above one of Europe’s busiest roundabouts, in a powerful, bright and high impact visual.

Students from Erskine Stewarts Melville Junior School in Edinburgh, who will be carrying the national team name plates in the Opening Ceremony, will be on hand to represent the Championships Adopt-a-Nation project, reflecting the youth orientation for the event. They will be joined by a contingent of Eritrean ‘Superfans’ from around Scotland.

The Eritreans are the loudest, most colourful and enthusiastic fans in world athletics and are expected to bring more than 400 ex-pat supporters to Edinburgh to see Tadese defend his crown.

Gordon Hood, Scottishathletics and Local Organising Committee Marketing Manager said: “He’s (Tadese) always been big in Eritrea but at the Omni Centre he is humungous.”

Tadese, the Olympic bronze medallist at 10,000m, is also the reigning double World Road Running champion. In 2006, he became first Eritrean to win a global title in any major sport, when he won he took his first World Road Running title in Debrecen, Hungary.