The "Le Meeting Gaz de France du Pas-de-Calais" is organised by the "Ligue Nord/Pas-de-Calais d'Athlétisme".

The Meeting will be the last international Meeting before the World Athletic Championships due to take place in Budapest one week later.

The Gaz de France Pas-de-Calais Meeting will be celebrating its seventeenth anniversary this year. It will tempt to become  world's leading indoor Meeting again.

The first international meeting took place in Liévin in 1988, two years after the Stade Couvert Régional, the largest and most modern indoor stadium in Europe, was finished in Liévin.

After organising the Indoor European Championships in 1987, Michel Bernard had the idea of setting up a great international event the following year. The international meeting was born.

From 1989, Philippe Lamblin took up the torch, bringing the event at the top of the world’s international indoor events 4 years later.

Since then, the meeting  - renamed “meeting Gaz de France du Pas-de-Calais” 6 years ago - has grown and has won 10 titles of best indoor meeting in the world.

Nowadays, the current president of the regional athletics league, Georges POCHON, has succeeded to Philippe LAMBLIN  as director of the meeting and has chosen a team of permanent employees, who, together with the elected members of the league, the 300 volunteers, the members, and the sponsors, work with the support of the French Athletics’ Federation for this world event to keep the place it has acquired and to continue to realise the dreams of millions of enthusiasts.