Sport Aid

Sport Aid (also known as Sports Aid) was a charitable event held on May 25 1986, raising millions of pounds to support famine relief in Africa, and is the sporting event with the most participants in history.

The event was organised by Bob Geldof, also the driving force behind Band Aid (1984) and Live Aid (1985), and took place in 78 countries simultaneously. At 15:00 GMT on Sunday May 25 1986, tens of millions of participants around the world ran, jogged or walked 10 kilometres with sponsorships or donations given to support African famine relief charities.

274 cities held official events to allow over 20 million participants to follow designated courses with television coverage shown worldwide. London saw 200,000 runners complete the course, and Barcelona hosted 50,000. In addition countless millions of further runners set out at the same time to run around their local village or park, or simply to take part in this global event. Only in the United States was the event a comparative failure, due in part to its clash with the better-publicized Hands Across America, and only 4,000 took part in the New York event.

Sport Aid was not very well known in United States because it happen on the same day as the better publicized Hands Across America, a nationwide fund-raiser for the hungry and homeless. Sport Aid was scheduled to take place at the beginning of a UN special session on Africa, and so the timing conflict with Hands Across America could not be avoided.

A central event was the lighting of a symbolic torch at the United Nations by Omar Khalifa, a champion Sudanese runner to signal the start the 10K races around the world. Mr. Khalifa began his journey to the United Nations on May 16, when he lit a torch from the embers of fire in El Moweilih relief camp in the Sudan. He was then flown to 12 European capitals, running through each and being greeted by leaders like Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II.

The New York Times reported, “With 200,000 Londoners setting the pace, more than 20 million runners in 76 countries ran today in Sport Aid, a global benefit to raise money for the starving of Africa.”Today, Sport Aid is still the biggest sporting event ever organized.

A video that documented the 1986 effort: "Sport Aid - The Race Against Time" - includes the music of The Cars, Tears for Fears, U2, The Police, The Hollies, Band Aid, Vangelis - featuring Sebastian Coe and a cast of millions! Running time 40 minutes - dated 1986

Two charity singles were released in the United Kingdom to publicize and raise money for the event: the Tears for Fears song "Everybody Wants To Rule The World" was re-recorded as "Everybody Wants To Run The World" in 1986, and Status Quo re-recorded their "Rockin' All Over the World" (which they used to open at Geldof's 1985 Live Aid concert in London) as "Running All Over the World" in 1988.

References

* [http://www.live-aid-dvd.com/gallery8c.htm Sport Aid] Details about the Sport Aid events.
* [http://www.sportaid.net Sport Aid] Information page about Sport Aid with video links.

See also

*Charity record
*Comic Relief
*Sport Relief
*Children in Need
*ChildLine
*Band Aid
*USA for Africa