IPC Athletics, the International Paralympic Committee’s federation for para-athletics, has reached a 12-month agreement to make financial services company Allianz its first global partner.
Allianz and IPC Athletics will develop joint programmes and digital assets to help raise the profile of the sport and its athletes.
In addition, Allianz will support three IPC Athletics Grand Prix events this year in Nottwil, Switzerland on May 16-18; Grosseto, Italy from May 30 to June 1 and Berlin, Germany on June 20-22, before August’s European Championships in Swansea, Wales from August 18-23. Allianz will be one of the main partners at Swansea 2014.
The new partnership with IPC Athletics extends Allianz’s ties with the Paralympic movement, which date back to 2006. Allianz companies support National Paralympic Committees in Australia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Sri Lanka, Switzerland and Ukraine and it also backs the IPC globally.
Sir Philip Craven, IPC president, said: “Allianz has a strong and exemplary track record for creating engaging awareness campaigns that help to raise the profile of para-sport and leading athletes, and I am confident this partnership will help do the same for para-athletics.
“Following the success of London 2012, IPC Athletics launched a number of initiatives and competitions designed to get more people practicing the sport at the grassroots, whilst at the same time increasing the number of high level competition opportunities for leading athletes. The IPC Athletics Grand Prix and Marathon World Cup have been great successes since their introduction and, with Allianz supporting the sport, they have the potential to be even better in future years.”