Track situation and qualification
I, Glynis, have been contacted by a few coaches in South Australia concerned with the situation that will arise with the loss of the artificial track in the later part of 2010 approx from August/September until a time unknown (could be the whole season). Athletes who are attempting to achieve qualifying standards for World Championships and World Youth competitions may find themselves having to travel at great expense to get these qualifiers. On behalf of these coaches I contacted Athletics Australia. Their responses are below:
It is a hard situation for a few athletes but in the end is a World Championship year next year (not Com Games) and so the A and B are performances that must be accepted by the IAAF. Given that the AAF make no allowance for lack of synthetic tracks in Africa for example we have no chance to get this for Adelaide. The key issue is that we do not control this - A and B qualifications are IAAF requirements. I hope this clarifies the situation. We understand that in South Australia there will be no access to a synthetic athletic surface for the latter part of the 2010 and early 2011. We have received questions in relation to the effect this may have on athletes qualifications for international events and National Championships. In the case of qualifications for international events, such as World Championships, Open and Youth, these need to be accepted and approved by the IAAF and there is currently no Allowance in performances that relates to the surface a performance is done on, synthetic, grass, cinders and dirt are all regarded as the same. In fact many performances are done in developing countries on non synthetic surfaces. It will be critical however that any temporary track that may be utilized in SA has been correctly measured and certified. Athletics Australia will work with Athletics SA to ensure this is the case. In regard to qualifications for Australia Juniors and Australia Open Championships for 2001, Athletics Australia will accept the first 3 in SA State Championships respectively. The measure alone will ensure qualified athletes in SA that have attended Nationals in recent years. Additionally we will be conducting a “late” season again in 2001 - with Open Nationals in mid April - this will be some assistance to SA athletes, giving some time back on the new track surface. We did give consideration to “adjusted” qualifications, but there is no reasonable or fair way to come up with such standards, given the wide range of events affected in various ways and the unknown properties of the temporary track and field sites.
Eric Hollingsworth