The Asian Youth Athletics Championships (U18) (Asian Youth U18 Athletics Championships) is a biennial, continental athletics competition for Asian athletes, organised by the Asian Athletics Association. First held in 2015, it is a youth category event open to athletes aged fifteen and seventeen.[citation needed] The competition was the fourth continental athletics competition to be held for that age level, following in the steps of the South American, Oceanian and African events. Its first edition came at a time of rising interest in such competitions, with the first African championships being held in 2013, and the European Athletics Youth Championships scheduled for the following year.[citation needed] In March 2014, the Asian Athletics Association's president Dahlan Jumaan al-Hamad cited the creation of the championships as a way of boosting the grassroots-level development of the sport in Asia and raising the importance of continental-level competition among the region's countries.[citation needed]
