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The Memorial Van Damme has become a central fixture on the world athletics calendar and Belgium's most well-known sporting event. It's all in homage to a brilliant life with a tragic end.On 25 August, the world’s greatest track and field athletes will come together at the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels to prove their worth.
The poster for this year's Memorial Van Damme
The Memorial Van Damme was first organised in honour of double Olympic medal winner Ivo Van Damme. 
Born on 21 February 1954 in a village close to Leuven and at first an avid football player, at the age of 16 Van Damme turned to athletics and in particular the 1,500 and 3,000m disciplines.
But soon he would discover the 800m and in 1971, he clocked 2:07.20 the first time he attempted the distance. Within a few months, he would improve his time by five seconds and begin his historic rise to fame.
He finished fourth in a new Belgian record behind Steve Ovett at the 1973 European Junior Championships in Duisburg, but illness intervened in 1974 and Belgian media quickly gave up on the young athlete.
But in 1975, Van Damme came back to claim silver at the European Indoor Championships in Katowice, breaking Roger Moens’ national record.
Later that year, he ran the minimum Olympic time and broke the world record at the European Championship in Munich.
His best performances were still to come, however, and in 1976, at the age of 22, Van Damme took part in the Montreal Olympics, where he won silver medals in both the 800 and 1,500m.
He got a hero's welcome upon his return and was named Belgian sportsman of the year, but always the perfectionist, Van Damme was disappointed he didn’t bring back the gold and promised to do so at the 1980 Olympics.
But fate was to step in when, just a few weeks later, he was killed in a car accident on his way back from a training centre in the south of France.
In memory
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