The January WMRA Council Meeting just concluded. A letter including all of your signatures as a show of support was sent to all WMRA Council and Congress members in advance of this meeting. Both the issue of Equal Team Size and Equal Distance were included on the meeting agenda. Our voices were heard!
Read excerpt of press release below of the WMRA Council Meeting, released today. (full Press Release here):
“Equality of course distances for men and women as well as team category sizes was a lengthy discussion point resulting in several changes which, now approved by Council will be put forth to the WMRA Congress for consideration. Should the Congress approve the changes, they would go into effect in January 2017 and be part of the 2017 World Mountain Running Championships program. Those changes include:
- Senior men and senior women will run an equal distance course of 10 kilometers (+/- 10%) The course is approximated based on the ramifications of the venue, which changes from year to year.
- Junior men and junior women will run an equal distance course of approximately 5 kilometers. (+/- 10%)
- in both cases, the course will have 10% ascent/descent difference.
- The team makeup by category will be the same across all categories. Up to five athletes can be included on an entry per category, with 4 to start/race and 3 to score. One of the reasons for this change is to reduce the cost of accommodations for the LOC, who will be responsible for the 3 scoring members and team staff, while the federations will bear the cost of non-scoring athletes.”