LONDON: The IAAF Friday announced an exclusive partnership with Elite Ltd (All Athletics) to create the first official IAAF World Rankings as a qualification mechanism to drive the sport’s annual competition system.
The MoU signed between the IAAF and Elite Ltd covers the build, management and maintenance of a new IAAF results and statistics database and the development of an official IAAF World Rankings system that will lead to qualification in to the premier competitions in the sport.
A root and branch review of athletics’ global calendar and all competitions within the sport – from championships to one-day meetings, road running, cross-country events etc – has been discussed by IAAF President Sebastian Coe since the Reforms were passed at the end of 2016 to help athletes and fans better compete and follow the sport they love. A series of meetings, discussions and consultation forums have been set up to look at the calendar and competition formats. This work will continue in 2018.
“The IAAF World Rankings, which will come into operation in 2018, will drive and shape the global competition system including entry into the World Championships and Olympic Games,” commented Sebastian Coe. “For the first time in the sport’s history, athletes, media and fans will have a clear understanding of the hierarchy of competitions from national through to area and up to global events, allowing them to follow a logical season-long path to the pinnacle of athletics' top two competitions.”
Athletes’ positions in the IAAF World Rankings will be based upon the points they score, the amount determined by their performance and place and the importance of the competition in the IAAF global calendar in which those results are achieved. The details of the World Rankings, including the points system for each event that goes towards the annual world rankings and the eligibility for entry in to World Championships and the Olympic Games, will be finalised in the first quarter of 2018, so the system can be applied for the IAAF World Championships in Doha in 2019 and the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020.
IAAF HERITAGE
In addition to the partnership with Elite Ltd, the IAAF is establishing a new department, ‘IAAF Heritage’. The department’s goal will be to better employ athletics’ history, its heroes and heroines, their artefacts and the documents, video and photographs that portray them, to engage with the stars and fans of the present and future. Chris Turner, who has been with the IAAF since 2002 and is currently Deputy Director of the Communications Department-PR, will be taking the new position as director of IAAF Heritage starting in January 2018.
“In creating the IAAF World Rankings partnership with Elite Ltd and setting up IAAF Heritage, we are establishing structures to assist the understanding and promotion of athletics for present and future generations,” commented IAAF CEO Olivier Gers. "The rankings will bring much needed clarity to what is today a confusing competition picture even for those from within the sport, while Heritage will be an important tool to help inform, inspire and engage interest through the extraordinary story of athletics."
- Log in to post comments