IAAF Vice-President Sergey Bubka was thrilled with what he saw at the 2009 IAAF Zagreb Grand Prix on Monday.

“This competition has been taking place for 59 years; it is a wonderful tradition that athletics needs and you must keep it on. We want competitions like this one” Bubka said with undisguised enthusiasm.

Having seen probably the best Zagreb Meeting in history, Bubka kept praising the Meeting.

"The atmosphere was magnificent and I know well what it means to athletes when the audience is within reach. The audience can help athletes in the moments when their strength gets drained. And in Zagreb, the audience and athletes were as one. That gives this competition a special charm. You also had excellent results this year, which corroborates that you are doing a very good job. World Athletics needs such a meeting."

From next year on, the Zagreb Meeting will have the IAAF World Challenge status, one level below the IAAF Diamond League. Only 26 meetings throughout the world will have the IAAF prefix and be in one of those two categories.

"Zagreb has been invited into the IAAF World Challenge, which is an acknowledgement of your long-time work and the level, at which you are now. The idea of the IAAF is that the Diamond League and World Challenge competitions get evaluated after three years and that there be fluctuation between the two levels. That means that all meetings, Zagreb as well, will have a possibility to advance to the Diamond League. It will all be up to you," Bubka said.