The concept of having IAU 24H relay initiated during the pandemic, and it is our new initiative. This is another project that reflects our mission to promote ultrarunning on global scale. This will be a great opportunity and we are taking now the first step to introduce the IAU 24H relay.
There will be a 3-year trial period when we will introduce and have the first events. This is the same way how we introduced 50km Trophy that finally become the IAU World Championship event. It will begin in 2023 and will occur consecutively up to 2025 when we will evaluate and take further steps. This will be a global event, so all the race organizers are invited to take part in this initiative and send expression of interest to us. The concept is that in each competition there will be at least 25 teams taking part of the relay event. The team will have 4 athletes running 6H each to complete 24H event.
The aims of the events are:
- To develop running beyond the Marathon for greater number of runners.
- To promote camaraderie amongst runners but at the same time keep level of competitiveness among them
- To promote events which are fully inclusive and to raise the profile of ultra running across the globe.
Ultrarunning is at an exciting junction and introducing these new concepts (even during the trial stages) will open the sport to wider audience and at the same time give our current athletes another exciting relay-time formatted event to train and partake in.
Nadeem Khan, IAU President
Please reach out to us if you would be interested in being a trial event by sending your express of interest to the following mailbox:
IAU24HRelay@iau-ultramarathon.org
We will provide more information in upcoming weeks.
We look forward to seeing the sport of ultrarunning grow further into the future!
Jacek Bedkowski
IAU Director of Communication
