220th World Athletics Council, photo by Phillipe Fitte
Each year, at the end of year Gala and at major championships and events, the World Council meets to discus governance of the sport. I try and read all of the council notes, as I would like to see what the Council sees as important.
In its final meeting of the year, the World Athletics Council approved the format of the Continental Tour, a new series of the world's best one-day meetings outside the Diamond League.
Comprising meetings from around the world, the Continental Tour will be divided into three levels - Gold, Silver and Bronze - whose status will be determined by the quality of competition and prize money on offer.
In 2020, the pilot year of the tour, 10 cities will host Gold level series meetings, offering a total of US$2million in prize money. The series will begin on 10 May in Tokyo in the same stadium that will host athletics competition at the 2020 Summer Olympic Games just 12 weeks later. The 10th meeting for 2020 has yet to be confirmed.
"We are kick starting our campaign to build more quality one-day meetings around the world with the new Continental Tour, which will give more athletes more opportunities to compete across all disciplines, to earn prize money and world rankings points and to build their profiles," said World Athletics President Sebastian Coe.
Change of dates for World Athletics Championships Budapest 2023, Executive Board appoints three new members
Council approved the proposed date changes for the World Athletics Championships Budapest 2023, which were to be held on 26 August - 3 September, but will now be held on 19-27 August.
Hasan Arat, Abby Hoffman and Sunil Sabharwal were approved by Council as the three newly appointed members of the World Athletics Executive Board.
Arat, a former professional basketball player, is the Vice President of the Turkish Olympic Committee and an Executive Committee Member of the European Olympic Committee. He is also Vice Chairman of Beymen, Turkey's largest retail group.
Hoffman, who represented Canada in middle-distance events at four Olympic Games, has been a World Athletics Council member since 1995 and was Chair of the World Athletics Competition Commission from 2015-2019. She is currently the Assistant Deputy Minister for the Strategic Policy Branch for Health Canada.
Sabharwal, a three-time winner of the NCAA All-American fencing title, has been Secretary General of the International Fair Play Committee since 2003. The US Olympic fencing team Chief de Mission in 2008, he has also been a member of the International Olympic Committee commission on sustainability and legacy since 2000.
The role of the Executive Board is to govern World Athletics' business. The Executive Board has responsibility for all decisions related to the business of World Athletics including the annual plan and budget, risks and compliance, and organisational policies, procedures and systems.
Three of the nine members of the Executive Board are appointed rather than elected, to ensure the Executive Board has the necessary skills, expertise, as well as gender and geographical diversity, to undertake its responsibilities.
Along with the three newly appointed members, the Executive Board includes World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, Senior Vice President Sergey Bubka, Vice Presidents Nawaf Bin Mohammed Al Saud, Geoff Gardner, Ximena Restrepo, and CEO Jon Ridgeon (non-voting).
World Athletics' 10-year sustainability strategy and plan was also approved. It will be released publicly in early 2020.
World Athletics
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