Marc Scott, Sophie McKinna and Kirsty Law are among early entries for the pilot event at Sportcity on May 27

Endurance runner Marc Scott, shot putter Sophie McKinna and discus thrower Kirsty Law are due to compete in the exciting new Manchester Invitational on Thursday May 27.

The throws look particularly strong with McKinna and Law joined by hammer throwers Chris Bennett, Jessica Mayho and Osian Jones, together with discus man Greg Thompson.

On the track, steeplechasers Aimee Pratt and Ieuan Thomas are set to race, plus 400m hurdler Chris McAlister and 400m runner Cameron Chalmers.

The British Athletics Supporters’ Club is backing the event too and is providing £1000 for the performances of the day, which will be split between the top male and best female athlete.

Some of our leading British men that will be in action on the 27th of May, holding a total of 12 national titles! pic.twitter.com/SnvJ7aqhPd

— Bryggen Sports (@BryggenSports) April 17, 2021

The meeting aims to provide timely competition for athletes one month out from the Müller British Championships and Olympic trials which will be staged at the same venue on June 25-27. It will also lay the platform for a Continental Tour event to be staged there next summer.

The date of Friday, June 3, 2022 has already been earmarked and a festival of athletics which will echo the kind of atmosphere associated with the hugely successful Night of the 10,000m PBs, is in the planning.

A winter indoor meeting is also due to take place at the Manchester Indoor Arena on January 28 of next year, right before the World Athletics Indoor World Tour gets underway, as the city throws its weight behind increasing its athletic profile.

The team behind the event is being led by Cherry Alexander, Vice President of European Athletics and former UK Athletics major events director, and Vicente Modahl, husband of former 800m Commonwealth champion Diane, who successfully staged a series of indoor meetings at the Manchester Indoor Arena earlier this year.

His brand Bryggen Sports is backing this event, while the Diane Modahl Sports Foundation, which works with disadvantaged children from across the North West of England will also be heavily involved.

Many of the volunteers, including the kit carriers, will be children or young people with whom they have worked as part of their programmes, while a percentage of any ticket sales – should spectators ultimately be allowed in, depending on COVID restrictions – will go to the charity.

The Diane Modahl 800m will also see £250 going towards one young person to support with things like access to training facilities or travel.

“It’s a wonderful side of athletics. People want to help,” says Alexander, who insists next year’s event is likely to start at the silver level, with the aspiration to quickly make it gold. I’ve been mindful for a while that we haven’t had a tour event in the UK.

“Around the world there are 85 tour meetings now. It’s quite sad when you look down and there’s no British flag there on their website. We’re going to get a British flag on there.

“This city is stepping up with us. There’s just a big dearth of that level of meeting, which still exists in Europe.

“There’s a huge gap. We know what we’re doing, we have the top officials, we’ve worked with the city many times and we know how to put an event on. So why wouldn’t you?”

Modahl, who coaches athletes such as steeplechaser Aimee Pratt and spent nine years as assistant meet director at the Bislett Games in Norway, would love to welcome spectators this year as he is all too aware of the appetite which exists for the sport in the area.

“We have a huge athletics fanbase in the North West, so we have great opportunity,” he says. “We know that the British Championship last September was fully sold out but obviously COVID stopped spectators from attending. We can only imagine that when we get a lot more international athletes to participate, it will be a great, great meet that we can build over time here in Manchester.”

He adds: “Manchester is an attractive city because of the background from sport and music. It is a city everyone knows about. It will be the first Continental Tour in Britain. As a coach it is very clear that competition opportunities are incredibly limited.

“A year on and with COVID being quite extensive it is obvious that maybe the absolute best athletes can travel a little bit but those [at the level] just behind can probably not travel at all.

“And that means that we need opportunities in Britain. We’ll see how it goes this year and see how we can improve and make sure that we have a really smooth operation for 2022.

“Manchester was the first city that was able to do a COVID event indoors, and so we want to show that Manchester can build up its own event without being directed from elsewhere in the country. We can actually do this ourselves.”