IAU has always kept the interests of its athletes at the heart of every decision it has taken. The sport is expanding globally and it has been a joint partnership between our athletes, member federations and the IAU that has made this possible.
The association has tried to be creative in expanding its calendar, introducing new events, seeking federations to be partners in championships and launching the 6 hour Global Solidarity Run. All of these have allowed the IAU to navigate through previously unchartered territories.
Our decision on discontinuing records for 6 days, 1000km and 1000miles was based as a package of several other initiatives including establishing the terminology IAU WRs for previously called WBPs, initiating 50mile IAU WRs and working with the World Athletics on 50km WRs. Our decision was made on the current following of participation in various events.
Following our announcement, several multiday enthusiasts have reached out to us and discussed with us the historical significance of the 6 Day event and also expressed the immense future interest in the event. We have listened to their feedback as we do for every initiative that we put forward. Listening together makes is stronger.
As a result of these discussions the IAU Executive Council in cooperation with the Records Committee has decided to reinstate the 6 Day event as an officially recognized event with the IAU. However, due to the declining interest in 1000 kms and 1000 miles (1 event with 3 participants), we will discontinue recognition of these distances as of January 1, 2022. Nevertheless, the Records Committee will continue to monitor the event over the next couple of years and if there is a surge in an interest for the distance and an increase in the events we will revisit the inclusion of these distances. The current records for those two distances will be saved and archived in our documents and also be available at IAU website as historical results so that those interested can see them at any time (the records will be frozen as of Jan 2022 and will not be updated).
We do want to thank all of you who have so passionately reached out to us. It has been really humbling to have these open dialogue with the community. We hope to see the rise in 6 Day events in the future and hopefully see some tremendous distances achieved in the coming years.
IAU Executive Council
October 11th 2021
Picture: Designed by starline / Freepik
