King Philip and Queen Mathilde will be the exceptional guests on Sep. 9th at this 40th anniversary of the meeting. It is the first visit of King Philip since he became the King of Belgium in 2013. Before that Philip was present no less than 5 times at the meeting as a crown prince. At his first visit the young Philip received a pair of spikes from Carl Lewis, 20 years later he handed the trophy to Cédric Van Branteghem who ran a national 400m record in 2003.
The late King Baudouin once was a guest at the meeting, as were King Albert and queen Paola. Another Royal at the meeting will be Prince Albert from Monaco, an IOC Member. It is his second visit at the Memorial Van Damme.
