IAU Council, Monaco, January 2019
We will start with IAU Athletes Commission that was established and we are very happy to give space to our Athletes and make sure they share the experience and expertise. There are 14 Athletes taking part of this commission lead by Wayne Botha from New Zealand as Chair and Virginia Oliveri from Italy as Vice-Chair. There was already a very successful face to face meeting in Albi, France and several teleconferences to discuss the matters related to runners and ultra events. We wrote about this already in our IAU 24H World Championship – behind the scenes publication.
IAU Athletes Commission meeting in Albi, France photo: Aneta Mikulska (POL)
IAU Para Athletes Committee
I would like to thank the members for commitment to this new committee. It’s been a measured start, with IAU adopting IPC rules for the World 24H Championships in Albi. This enabled more athletes to have the opportunity to compete in our championships now and in the future.
Zilma Rodrigues (Brazil), Emilio Cuadrado (Spain), Nele Alder-Baerens (Germany), Sinead Kane (Ireland).
IAU Technical Committee
IAU Technical Committee was busy in 2019 with development of the Technical Delegate course and finally executed three editions of the training seminars. It was a milestone in the development and shared experience from our experts working for IAU, Paco Rico the IAU Director of Competitions and Records and Chair of the IAU Technical Committee, Emilio Cuadrado from Spain member of the IAU Technical Committee and Coordinator of IAU Record Committee with the invaluable help of Fabian Campanini, IAU Americas Representative, for the course developed in Brazil. The first communication was share in April on the IAU Technical Education. In July the first training took place in Brazil, more about this you can find here. The Team managed to deliver two further training seminar, one in Romania (end of August) and one in Jordan (end of November). More information on both events was published recently on IAU website.
Participants at first IAU Technical Delegate Training in Brazil, July 2019
Chair
Paco Rico (ESP).
Coordinator
Gregorio Zucchinali (ITA).
Members
Yussuf Alli (NGR), Sara Alvarez (ESP), Emilio Cuadrado (ESP), Frank Kuo (TPE), Armand Leblanc (CAN), André Migneau (BEL), Tamas Molnar (HUN), Fabian Campanini (ARG).
IAU Trail Committee
At the start of the year, the main aim of IAU Trail Committee was to work with ITRA on the very successful World Trail Championships in Mirandha da Corvo, Portugal where there were a record breaking number of federations taking part in the final championships. More was reported in the end of year summary and race report.
Since then, there has been a switch to the new goal heralded by World Athletics (IAAF) of a World Athletics mountain and trail running championships as a festival of off road running held over a number of days with the first event being proposed in 2021. This is a joint venture led by World Athletics with the IAU, WMRA and ITRA providing the expertise behind the organisation of the event. It will be an event comprising 4 races, both mountain and trail, uphill, up and down hill mountain events and short and longer trail races. Hilary Walker, our General Secretary has been attending the combined working group for the IAU. This group have devised the advertisement for interested LOCs - see WA link an there has been widespread interest from across the globe in the “expressions of interest” currently received. Early in 2020, these LOCs will receive the application documents and these will be evaluated during the first half of 2020.
Chair
Paco Rico (ESP).
Members
Hilary Walker (GBR), Liesbeth Jansen (NED).
IAUMedical Committee
Hilary Walker, General Secretary has been keeping the IAUMedical Committee apprised of further work being heralded by World Athletics on an update on the WA Competition Medical Guidelines and there will be further work on these in 2021.
Chair
Nadeem Khan (CAN).
Members
Hilary Walker (GBR), Jan Vandendriessche (BEL), Maurizio Crispi (ITA), Lion Caldwell (USA), Andrew Bosch (RSA).
IAU Record Committee
It was a great success for the IAU Record Committee to develop and finally close the continental records in 2019. It was an initiative driven by Paco Rico, the Chair of the Committee and Emilio Cuadrado, the Coordinator. There were several communication and discussion with stake holders to make sure all the critical points were addressed. In March the Committee provided guideline for the concept and you can read about this here. Finally the list was created with all continental records and published on the IAU website as well (click picture below for more details). Meanwhile all the members of the committee continued with the considerable work required to evaluate and continue to evaluate multiple WBP and WBAP, as well as various CBPs from practically all distances, under the supervision of Emilio Cuadrado as Coordinator. Their work has meant that now all applications are evaluated faster to be able to keep the records listing as current as possible.
Chair
Paco Rico (ESP).
Coordinator
Emilio Cuadrado (ESP).
Members
Andy Carr (USA) 1000k and 6 days, Riel Hauman (RSA) 50k and 6 hours, Antonio Méndez (ESP) 100k, Paco Montañés (ESP) 12hrs and 24 hrs, John Muskett (NZL) 48 hrs, Howard Nippert (USA) 100 miles and 1000 miles.
IAU Financial Committee
2019 it was another year where IAU Financial Committee focused on Strategic Plan for years 2019-2020. Working on core brand values that were main drivers for the organization and working on financial security for the IAU. There are several areas such as Finance, Marketing Branding that we worked. In addition define key drivers, objectives, strategies and in the end KPIs.
Chair
Robert Boyce (AUS).
IAU Communications Committee
It was another busy year for the IAU Communications Committee. In 2019 we noticed great improvement on social media coverage, being present at Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Finally in December we moved with YouTube Channel as well. Increased demand and expectation has progressed and we fully covered all six championships in all media channels, including pre-race reports, press conferences, technical meeting and subject matters meetings, live stream from event, race reports, interviews, and many other aspects. The Team was led by Jacek Bedkowski, IAU Director of Communication and Chair of the IAU Communications Committee. Starting from September we introduced podcast during and between championships led by John O’Regan, member of the IAU Communications Committee. There is still more to improve and more will come. You can read about our work on IAU website, social media.
Podcast recording, Albi, France photo: Jacek Bedkowski
Chair
Jacek Bedkowski (POL)
Members
Lucas Alves (BRA), John O´Regan (IRL), Frank Kuo (TPE), Wayne Botha (NZL), Linda Doke (RSA), Shibani Gharat (IND).
IAU Area Representatives
The Role of the four IAU Area Representatives from Africa, America, Asia and Europe are the eyes and ears of the IAU. They reach out and seek out venues to host IAU Championships and Challenges across the globe. In 2019 the ultra running community has witnessed new venues and new nations embracing events from 50K to 24hrs. The concept of regional 6hr challenges is a new initiative where a host country invites its neighbours to join together in friendship and camaraderie under the umbrella of an ultra running challenge. In 2020 the four IAU Representatives will build on last year’s successes and continue to strive to meet the needs of ultra athletes in every corner of the globe.
Solomon Ogba (NGR) Africa, Arturo Fabian Campanini Lopez (ARG) America, Gilsoo Park (KOR) Asia, Walter Hill (GBR) Europe.
On behalf of the IAU Organization we would like to thank you for all the work and support. We couldn’t have done it without all your input and hard work.
IAU Council working meeting, Albi, France photo: Jacek Bedkowski
Jacek Bedkowski
IAU Director of Communication
