NEW QUALIFICATION SYSTEM FOR 2015 WORLDS, by Alfons Juck, EME News MOSCOW (RUS): Ahead of the IAAF World Championships in Moscow, the first day of the 49th IAAF Congress played host to the 1st IAAF World Athletics Forum, providing an environment for lively and open debate among Congress delegates about the future of athletics. The forum was chaired by IAAF President Lamine Diack and welcomed seven speakers and 17 panellists, each from a different country, as they provided expert and diverse perspectives and insights from both inside and outside the athletics family. Following that, IAAF General Secretary Essar Gabriel outlined the vision, missions and objectives of the 2013-2016 IAAF Strategic Plan, which picks up the baton from the IAAF Athletics’ World Plan – a ten-year strategy to propel the sport forward, which concluded in December last year. The IAAF Strategic Plan comprises three phases – strategic and organisational review, strategic plan, and action plan – and it begins with the six IAAF core values: universality, leadership, unity, excellence, integrity and solidarity. IAAF Senior Vice President Robert Hersh outlined some of the latest evolutions for future IAAF competitions, of which one of the most significant was the new qualification system for the Olympic Games and World Championships. Effective for the 2015 IAAF World Championships in Beijing, there will be a fixed number of athletes per event with the combined total of 2000 athletes competing. Instead of ‘A’ and ‘B’ standards, there will be a single qualification standard for each event, which aims to fill 75% of the quota for that discipline. The rest of the places will be filled by the top-ranked athletes in each event. The second breakout session, on the subject of ethics in athletics, was chaired by IAAF Vice President Sebastian Coe. In it, Marathon World record-holder Paula Radcliffe spoke about the risks of corruption in athletics; mainly with regards to doping, but also illegal betting and age manipulation.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Aug 2013 18:57:39 +0000
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