The Irish Schools Track and Field Championships will receive the World Athletics Heritage Plaque in a presentation this weekend which will coincide with the 110th staging of the event.The event began in 1916 and is the world’s second-longest running schools championships, after Jamaica.The World Athletics Heritage Plaque is awarded for “an outstanding contribution to the worldwide history and development of the sport of track and field athletics”, and the Irish Schools Championships is the first athletics event of any kind in this country to receive the honour.There are five overlapping categories of the location-based award, including competitions, landmark stadiums and tracks, and posthumous recognition of athletes, coaches, officials.“The fact it’s the 110th anniversary of the Schools Championships, this year, is a most appropriate time to mark the significance of the event,” said World Athletics head of competition management Pierce O’Callaghan, who is a former Irish international race walker.“And getting recognised by World Athletics like this is a tribute to everyone who has been involved in the championships over the years, officials and athletes.”The Irish Schools Track and Field Championships, which gets under way on Friday, has been staged over two days since 2021 and is hosted by Tullamore Harriers AC.The plaque will be unveiled on Friday evening by Galway businessman Michael Burke, a winner of several Connacht schools sprint titles in the 1960s, representing St Joseph’s Garbally, and now the chief patron of the Museum of World Athletics.The Irish Schools Athletics Association has over 650 affiliated schools throughout the island of Ireland, with around 22,000 athletes taking part in the championships each year.