Katarina Johnson-thompson To Bring All-female Heptathlon Festival To Liverpool
Katarina Johnson-Thompson has launched a new all-female athletics festival at her home track in Liverpool, in a bid to inspire the next generation of female athletes.
In partnership with Summus Sports Group and Project 30, ‘Festathlon’ will take place in Wavertree on Saturday 11th September 2021, and will bring KJT back to Liverpool following the rescheduled Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
The festival will be ‘a combination of… athletics, music, and the city of Liverpool’, and will see an ‘innovative heptathlon team format’ take place to ‘celebrate the traditions of the sport whilst offering up something new for lifelong fans and first-time watchers alike’.
Rather than pitting athletes against each other over a two-day heptathlon event, the festival will see teams of six go head-to-head across the seven disciplines. The event will comprise four elite teams in one competition, and four university teams taking part in a separate university competition. The elite teams will be captained by four leading British athletes with the university competition being battled out between the University of Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores University, University of Birmingham, and Cardiff Metropolitan University.
Each team will put one athlete forward to compete in the first six events of the heptathlon, with points scored based on position from 1st to 4th. The 800m – the final event of the heptathlon – will be run as a 4x200m team relay, with captains selecting four athletes to race for the team. Teams will start the relay 1m behind the 800m start line for every point they are behind the leading team, with the first team to cross the line declared the winner.
The event will also see a mixture of DJs and live music acts perform, as part of a partnership with the Liverpool International Music Festival (LIMF) Academy. The LIMF Academy supports artists and bands between the ages of 16-25 from across Merseyside.
“It’s amazing to be bringing elite athletics back to Liverpool,” said Johnson-Thompson.
“It has been so long since I competed in Wavertree and it will mean so much to me to compete in front of those fans that have shown me so much support through the years. The people of the North West really know how to create an atmosphere.
“I’m looking forward to bringing the heptathlon to life in a fun and exciting way. I love the traditional two-day event, but I’m pleased to be sharing the load with my teammates this time and I’m so proud that Festathlon will celebrate female talent, both on the track and on the music stage. It’s going to be a great day that I’m sure everyone who comes will love.”
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