FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Plaatjes and Mayor Wheeler open MOWA Track & Field Heritage
Exhibition Oregon22 in Portland
USA's 1993 world marathon champion Mark Plaatjes and City Mayor Ted Wheeler
cut the opening ribbon at the MOWA Track &Field Heritage Exhibition
Oregon22 in Portland today.
The Museum of World Athletics (MOWA) exhibition, which is the first of two
heritage displays to be opened in Oregon ahead of the World Athletics
Championships Oregon22 (15 to 24 July), is located in Pioneer Place
shopping mall in downtown Portland.
During today's opening ceremony, South African born Plaatjes, who won the
marathon gold medal at the 1993 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany,
made a generous donation to MOWA. He presented his green springboks'
singlet, which he wore when running his marathon personal best of 2:08:58
in Port Elizabeth on 4 May 1985, to the museum's World Athletics Heritage
Collection.
"I am honoured that my singlet is now part of the Museum of World Athletics
and is on display in Portland for the next four months," smiled Plaatjes.
"My donation is in the best of company when you consider that one of Eliud
Kipchoge's Rio 2016 Olympic shoes sits nearby."
Plaatjes was the first South African to break 2:09 and his time would then
have put him 12th on the world all-time list. However, due to the apartheid
system in South Africa, Plaatjes and his compatriots were in international
sporting isolation.
In 1988, Plaatjes, a victim of apartheid due to his mixed race, fled his
homeland with his family. They successfully attained political asylum in
the USA, though he was not granted citizenship until 1993, just weeks
before Stuttgart. Plaatjes had provisionally been selected for the USA team
based upon his sixth-place finish at the Boston Marathon.
Plaatjes was joined at the opening ceremony by Portland City Mayor Ted
Wheeler, Sasha Spencer-Atwood, Director of Athlete Experience at the World
Athletics Championships Oregon22, Jessica Curtis, General Manager of
Pioneer Place and Billie Moser, Travel Portland Vice President
International Affairs &Community Engagement. Together the five guests
declared the MOWA exhibit open by cutting the official ribbon and unveiling
the showcases – after which, Plaatjes' singlet was placed into the display.
The Portland exhibit will be open to the public until the end of the World
Athletics Championships Oregon22 on 24 July. A second MOWA exhibition in
the University of Oregon in Eugene, where the 2000 athletes will be
accommodated during the championships, opens on 23 June, less than a month
before the championships, and will also close on 24 July.
The two displays feature track and field exhibits from 1908 to the present
day but are just a small fraction of the World Athletics Heritage
Collection which is on permanent display on MOWA's online platform in
glorious 360° 3D.
60 athletes, 25 countries, six areas
Singlets, running shoes, equipment and trophies from more than 60 all-time
greats of track and field athletics, representing more than 25 countries
across all six continental areas, are featured.
The world and Olympic champions and world record-breakers represented by
artefacts include Paavo Nurmi, Jesse Owens, Fanny Blankers-Koen, Emil
Zatopek, Adhemar Da Silva, Herb Elliott, Irena Szewinska, Carl Lewis, Grete
Waitz, Michael Johnson, Marie-Jose Perec, Gail Devers, Haile Gebrselassie,
Cathy Freeman, Maria Mutola, Jan Zelezny, Robert Korzeniowski, Carolina
Kluft, Allyson Felix, Usain Bolt, Valerie Adams, Ashton Eaton, Christian
Taylor, Anita Wlodarczyk, Mutaz Barshim and Eliud Kipchoge.
Chris Turner for World Athletics Heritage
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