Elections — We elected four positions: Chair – Robert Thomas, Vice-Chair – Colleen Barney, Secretary – Rachel Guest, Treasurer – Mike Travers, and Active Athlete Rep – Christina Yarmul. Congratulations to all!
Chair Report — The focus of the Chair’s report was primarily on our success in Gothenburg. Jerry recognized the athletes, the team managers, and the physios who all contributed to “our epic performance.” We still need to work on increasing the number of our female competitors (while the US women were responsible for 56% of our team medals, they only comprised 37% of our competing athletes). Jerry also recognized the efforts of Sandy Triolo who was our team photographer and a significant contributor to our new Team USA poster. Jerry also reported that we may have some interest from Mexico and Canada for the NCCMA Regional Meet this year.
Law and Legislation Committee Report – John Bahakel gave a brief report (since this is a “rules” year, not a law and legislation year) focusing primarily on the new term limit rules and the fact that we have to vote on them again because of some ambiguities in the language after last year’s vote. There were several interesting questions, including what do we do if no one else wants to run when someone is term-limited out. We still need to get answers to that question.
Rules Committee Report – Sandy Pashkin presented the rule changes that would impact Masters Track & Field. The most important rule change was one that would add an additional sanction regarding records for athletes who are sanctioned for more than 6 months by USADA or WADA for an anti-doping violation. We reviewed and agreed to the proposed rules changes submitted to the USATF Rules Committee for review and ratification.
USATF Board Report — Chris Pasko, our rep on the USATF Board gave us his report. He started by thanking Jerry Bookin-Weiner for the work he has done for the MTF Committee these past years and acknowledged Jerry’s good relationship with the national office has helped MTF. He shared that he is excited to begin working with Robert as the incoming Chair. Chris discussed the difficulties surrounding the time to receive reimbursements and reinforced that our successes are recognized and drive the national office to give us more assistance (whether by way of the budget or things like free uniforms).
Records Subcommittee Report — We voted to ratify all but five records – the records that were not ratified were from meets that did not comply with USATF rules (one was a college meet that follows NCAA rules, and the other was from Pan Am Championships which broke their own rules). We were reminded that if you are competing at a meet other than our national or world championships, the athletes should be sure that the meet organizers and officials responsible for events know that you are going to go for a record. You may also try to make things easier for them (which, in turn, makes things easier for you) by downloading and completing as much of the record application as possible prior to your competition. We also were told that there had been some backlog in reviewing record applications, but they are getting caught up now.
Communications Subcommittee Report — Sandy Triolo reported as chair of the Communications subcommittee, a role she has had since 2016. She discussed the timeline of our social media presence since 2015 and outlined the tools in use by the MTF community including WordPress, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Google Docs, and Constant Contact. These tools have come into use during the past 8 years. She pointed out that on social media the growth of our accounts has been “organic” meaning we have not paid to promote our posts. She credits the inspiring images, accomplishments, and stories of Masters Athletes as the reason for this growth. She continues to look for people to assist her in getting new stories of MTF and MLDR athletes out on our platforms to encourage new people to participate. She added that Jerry Bookin-Weiner, Robert Thomas, Colleen Barney, Roman Marinin, Sue McDonald, and others have been instrumental in helping grow the community online by answering questions and producing content. Lastly, a new video project, produced by Susan Adams-Loyd, was reviewed, and will soon be released, promoting masters track and field participation.
Throws Subcommittee Report — Sue Hallen reported that we had a great year last year at the throws championships with 114 athletes (and the inability to allow another 15+ athletes simply due to time constraints). The 2025 throws championships will be in Middletown NY on August 17 & 18, 2025. The subcommittee is actively seeking bidders for 2026 (and has a preference to go to the West Coast, if possible) – if you know of a potential venue, please let Sue know. The committee is also actively seeking articles related to throws for publication in National Masters News. And, finally, the specs for the 700g javelin have been changed — so before you go buy a new javelin, you might want to look into the new rule changes.
Anti-Doping Subcommittee Report — Cheryl Bellaire gave the Anti-Doping Subcommittee report. She reminded everyone that there will be a webinar for Masters Athletes put on by USADA on January 15 at 8 pm (EST). These webinars are highly informative and extremely important for Masters Athletes. Register in advance for this webinar: https://usada-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMtd-GvqzoqHt3jljHPo8mckveOor-D6mm5?#/registration
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
If you are competing at the WMA World Masters Indoor Championships in Gainesville in March — it is important to know that there is an entirely different process to get your prescribed medications (which otherwise may be prohibited) approved for competition. You will need to go to: https://world-masters-athletics.org/anti-doping/ and follow the instructions you find there.
DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE AND THEN EXPECT TO COMPLETE AND COMPETE — IF YOU DO NOT GET A REQUIRED TUE, YOU COULD BE SUBJECT TO UP TO A 4 YEAR BAN, IF YOU FAIL A DRUG TEST.
Future Championships — We had some excellent presentations from Gainesville who will be hosting our indoor championships in 2025 and Huntsville who will be hosting our outdoor championships in 2025. Both places have gone above and beyond and we are excited to bring our MTF Championships to both cities. We had a bid presentation for the 2027 Outdoor Championships by Ames Iowa who hosted us in 2019 and 2021. After the presentation, we voted and unanimously granted the bid to Ames for the 2027 Outdoor Masters Championships. We also had a bid presentation for the 2027 Indoor Championships by Gainesville. After the presentation, we voted and unanimously granted the bid to Ames for the 2027 Indoor Masters Championships. Finally, we had a presentation from Gainesville regarding the upcoming WMA Indoor Championships in March. You can find all of the information regarding this meet at wmaci2025.com and also here. We will NOT be offering travel grants or medal money for the WMA Indoor Championships in Gainesville.
Updated Operating Procedures — We reviewed the updated operating procedures and voted unanimously to approve them (as amended by the Executive Committee to continue to allow Masters Regional Coordinators to be elected by the Masters Chair of their associations).
Joint Session with MLDR – We reviewed several of the same topics discussed above (Gainesville, rules, etc.). We ended the session by announcing and honoring this year’s award recipients and Hall of Fame inductees for both groups.
New Business — We discussed some new business including why we are limited to only 39 actively engaged athletes voting on the MTF committee. The discussion was thought-provoking, and the officers are going to look into whether we can (at future annual meetings) increase the number of active athletes who can vote in our meetings (even if it means giving all active athletes a fractional vote on the committee). We also discussed the astronomical costs of facilities and how we can continue to host meets with costs that are so prohibitive. We discussed whether we will be getting new uniforms for Gainesville — it is more likely than not that we will be wearing the Rio kit for Gainesville and then moving to the Tokyo kit for Daegu. Finally, Robert informed the committee that we have been able to get the National Office to allow us to budget $50 per day for officials at our national championships (and he is working to increase that amount over his tenure in office).
Executive Committee Wrap-Up — We finished the meeting sessions with a recap session of the Executive Committee. The only real new information we discussed was the need to start filling subcommittees (beginning with subcommittee chairs). We will begin to solicit applications for these positions nearly immediately after returning home this week.
We ended the evening with the celebration of the Evening of Legends where we recognized our Masters Athletes of the Year, Neringa Jaksteine and Nora Cary! Congratulations to both athletes!
