Sport Aid

Sport Aid (also known as Sports Aid) was a charitable event held on May 25 1986, raising $37m to support famine relief in Africa, and is the sporting event with the most participants in history.

The event was organised by Chris Long (Chairman and Founder), Bob Geldof (Band Aid), Simon Dring (UNICEF consultant) and John Anderson PhD (Head of Global Special Events, UNICEF). Paul Willies (Fundraising Consultant) was the initial coordinator for the events in North America, writing the manual for the 10k road race and contributed to bringing in UNICEF as the overall underwriter of the project. Sport Aid was supported by Band Aid (Bob Geldof) and UNICEF. The event took place in 89 countries simultaneously. Sport Aid raised funds for Band aid and UNICEF.

At 15:00 GMT on Sunday May 25 1986, 19.8 million runners 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 19.8 million participants to follow designated courses with television coverage shown worldwide. London saw 200,000 runners complete the course, Barcelona hosted 50,000, Athens 30,000, Santiago 15,000, Dublin 20,000, Port of Spain 15,000, Melbourne 10,000 and 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. In the United States New York, Chicago, Atlanta, and San Francisco participated (along with several other Running Clubs in smaller towns) - with New York being the key race. The events in the United States were not widely publicized due in part to its clash with Hands Across America,. Sport Aid was scheduled to take place on the eve 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 1500m 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 Athens where the torch of Africa and the Olympic torch were symbolically joined. This was the first time the Olympic torch had been lit outside of an Olympic Games. He then ran through 12 European capitals, being greeted by leaders like Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, President Mitterrand, Chancellor Kohl 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

A charity single was released to publicize and raise money for the event: the Tears for Fears song Everybody Wants to Run the World.