Hundreds ready for 4J Studios National Open

Thursday 16th January 2020

All road lead to the Emirates Arena for the next few weeks as the 4J Studios Indoor Season takes centre stage.

After the excitement of mass hectic cross country at Run Stirling, the 4J Studios National Open is in many ways the ‘mass participation’ equivalent in track and field.

Hundreds of athletes have signed up for Saturday’s events at the superb Glasgow venue and of course it pitches competitors of all standards in together.

It’s all about making a start to 2020 and putting a marker down for scottishathletics championship events coming up very soon in the weeks that follow.

In fact, those in the Senior and U17 age groups are making the first of two visits in nine days with over 600 athletes coming back to the Emirates on Sunday 26 January for their championships.

But, this weekend, it is also about development for many of the younger athletes at our clubs and the 4J Studios National Open is geared to help give athletes a first experience of a big event and help those unfamiliar with that to become more accustomed to the processes that happen at championship events.

Live Results

Live Results are online from Saturday (the link at the moment is start-lists and timetable)

There are no medals this weekend, of course, but athletes across all disciplines will be chasing PB performances and a sign of progress to come in 2020.

Paddy Burns and Mark Munro shake hands on Academy sponsorship last year and that partnership now extends to track and field events (photos by Bobby Gavin).

Saturday’s 4J Studios National Open is the first track and field event since we announced a new sponsorship deal to cover both the indoor and outdoor season and the scottishathletics Annual Awards.

‘4J Studios are delighted to continue our association and commitment to Scottish Athletics with this new partnership,’ said CEO Paddy Burns, when we launched the partnership.

‘It’s a natural progression from our work with the National Academy and it’s great to play a part in encouraging sports involvement and development in Scotland from grassroots upwards.’

Mark Munro, chief executive of scottishathletics, said: ‘I’m excited about the new partnership with 4J Studios and it is really great news for scottishathletics.

‘Over the past couple of years, our Annual Awards Dinner has benefited from the sponsorship support from FPSG and we were able to link that with the Indoor Season and the Outdoor track and field events in the summer. I want to thank FPSG for their support.

‘With 4J now on board for these three areas, we will look to further grow and enhance our track and field events and the Annual Dinner. We feel this can be of benefit to both parties.

‘As an example, we had a pilot live stream broadcast with BBC Scotland for the Senior Championships at Grangemouth last summer – streaming the action for part of the second day alongside coverage for the whole weekend via Vinco and also on their website runjumpthrow.com

‘Partnership support helps significantly for us to fund this kind of coverage and thus raises the profile of the event, the athletes and the sponsor. We will look to replicate and enhance those partnerships now in 2020 and 2021.’