World Athletics Council competition decisions announced

The confirmation of competition dates for three World Athletics Series events are among the recent decisions made by the World Athletics Council.

The World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships in Antalya, Turkiye, will be held on 20-21 April 2024.

The World Athletics Indoor Championships in Nanjing, China, will take place between 21-23 March 2025.

And the World Athletics Indoor Championships in Torun, Poland, will be held on 20-22 March 2026.

Meanwhile, the following dates have been agreed by the Global Calendar Unit for the protected National Championships Windows for the northern hemisphere:

8-9 July 2023 – National Outdoor Championships
29-30 July 2023 – National Outdoor Championships
17-18 February 2024 – National Indoor Championships
29-30 June 2024 – National Outdoor Championships
22-23 February 2025 – National Indoor Championships
2-3 August 2025 – National Outdoor Championship
23-24 August 2025 – National Outdoor Championship
25-26 July 2026 – National Outdoor Championships

The World Athletics Council also approved the timetable for next year’s World Athletics Indoor Championships in Glasgow, Scotland. Athletes will compete on 1-3 March 2024, with the women’s pentathlon getting the action under way on the morning of day one.

Finals feature in each of the six sessions, the first being the women’s shot put on the morning of Friday 1 March, while the women’s 1500m will bring the action to a close during the evening session on Sunday 3 March.

The qualification system for the World Athletics Indoor Championships Glasgow 24 was released last month.

Timetable | Qualification system and entry standards

Competition changes to be introduced at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23

The World Athletics Council has approved a series of competition changes, to be introduced starting at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23.

• Lane allocation after the first round
  There have been growing requests to differentiate the method of lane allocation after the first round between straight and oval events and the Council agreed to the following:
  
  The same will apply to the combined events, where the qualification best in a heptathlon or a decathlon is to be used for seeding.
• Relays seeding
  Relay teams do not always feature the same four athletes and therefore their best times are often not reliably comparable. This makes it difficult to properly seed the teams based on best times alone. Council approved that the relays be seeded based on a combination of two factors (each contributing 50 percent):
  – Each team’s qualification best performance.
  – Each team’s qualification best performances set by the individual athletes entered for the relay team (or for the 100m/400m). An adjusted qualification best will be considered in other events (e.g. 110mH, 200m, 400mH) if the athlete does not have one in the 100m/400m.
• Qualification to the next round in middle distance events
  There has been widespread feedback on the significant disadvantage to athletes in the first heat or semifinal, and advantage to athletes in subsequent heats or semifinals, when receiving qualification based on time due to knowing what is required to qualify. The new criteria establishes that, for all events from 1500m and up to 5000m in World Athletics Series competitions, qualification to the next round will be by place only.

  Based on World Athletics Championships target numbers, the below table shows what the new situation would be in Budapest (“Q” = qualified by place; “q” = qualified by time):
  

• Athlete replacement policy
  The Council strongly supports the opportunity of trying to avoid empty lanes or starting places in finals and semifinals at all applicable World Athletics Series competitions when these are due to withdrawals from injury or other justifiable reasons, and approved that an Athlete Replacement Policy may be introduced subject to certain conditions.
• Personal implements
  The Council agreed to remove the ban on submitting for approval personal implements that are already present in the official list, and to allow athletes to submit no more than two personal implements for inclusion in the pool regardless of them being on the list or not.
• Relay teams final confirmation and running order
  In the interests of improved efficiency, while creating more excitement and making the races less predictable, Council approved the following:
  – Set a later deadline for confirming the relay team (not individual athletes) to allow teams to assess potential injuries occurred during the day. The new deadline will be the evening of the previous day, instead of the morning of the previous day.
  – Declare the final team members and running order (for the first or subsequent round) at the latest at the time of reporting for first call, with no need for pre-declaration. Consequently, there will be no need to report any injuries to the Medical Delegate for replacements.

The Competition and Technical Rules will be updated shortly with the full changes approved by the Council and will be available in the Book of Rules section of the World Athletics Library.

Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay

In addition, the Council approved recommendations concerning the new Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay, which will make its debut at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

• Qualification pathway
  – The Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay will replace the 35km at the 2024 World Athletics Race Walking Team Championships in Antalya and the top 22 finishing teams in Antalya will qualify automatically for Paris.
  – Up to five of the 22 teams can be a second team from the same country.
  – Three additional teams (which cannot be from a country already qualified from Antalya) will qualify through the Marathon Race Walk Mixed Relay top performance lists during the qualification period (31 December 2022 to 30 June 2024).
• Judging
  This is a new event that is based on team participation. The priority is to allow every team to finish while ensuring that no team gets an advantage by walking irregularly. Therefore, time penalties will replace disqualifications in case of additional red cards for the team.

Credit: World Athletics