This is the first of two reports, on the Masters Track & Field Committee’s meetings at the recently concluded USATF Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida. This report will cover actions taken by the MTF Committee.
Site Selection
On Friday, December 3, the Committee heard bid presentations from three bidders for the 2023 USATF Masters Indoor Championships. The bidders were Gately Park in Chicago, Illinois, the Norton Sports and Learning Center in Louisville, Kentucky, and JDL Fast Track in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. By an overwhelming vote, the delegates selected Louisville as the host city for 2023 Indoors. The Norton Sports and Learning Center opened earlier this year and is about three miles from the hotels and downtown Louisville. The facility features a 200m hydraulically banked six-lane Mondo track with the sprint straightaway on the oval rather than in the infield. The meet will be held March 10-12, 2023.
In addition, the Committee provisionally approved the idea of holding the 2025 Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, provided that issues with the facility’s configuration can be resolved so that it can accommodate the Masters Championships. Stay tuned for more on the resolution of the configuration issues, which must be verified by the MTF Championships Games Subcommittee.
Revisions to the MTF Operating Procedures
Revisions to the MTF Operating Procedures fell into five categories:
- Cleaning up internal inconsistencies
- Changes to the Active Athlete Delegate Selection Process
- Changing the speaking time for Chair candidates in Chair elections
- Changing the process by which WMA delegates are allocated and selected
- Adding three members to the MTF Executive Committee
In the first category the major group of changes was to add the words “in the year in which the Summer Olympics were originally scheduled” in a number of places to take account of the situation that arose in 2020.
The Active Athlete Delegate Selection Process was changed in two ways. The first was to codify the virtual selection process used in 2020 and 2021. The second was to add a requirement that, when feasible, there should be a balanced regional and event group distribution of the Active Athlete Delegates. This will be accomplished through a formula to be agreed upon by the MTF Executive Committee.
At the time of the Chair election last year the candidates were allotted five minutes each for speeches and five minutes for questions. This was a recommendation from the Nominating Committee, in spite of the fact that the Operating Procedures specified ten minutes for each. The revision adopted this year makes the change permanent.
The complicated process for allocating WMA delegates between MTF and MLDR was changed. Henceforth the allocation will be by mutual agreement between the chairs of the two committees (it will be three MTF delegates and two MLDR delegates for Tampere in 2022). Also, MTF delegates will no longer be elected; henceforth, the MTF Chair will name the delegates in even-numbered years to alternating four-year terms, with the approval of the MTF Executive Committee.
Finally, a motion was made from the floor to add the Chairs of the Combined Events, Racewalk, and Throwing Events Subcommittees to the Executive Committee. The rationale for this change was that those Subcommittees conduct stand-alone championships. A vigorous discussion ensued, with a counter-argument that other groups should also have a seat at the table. By a narrow margin the motion was approved and the three subcommittee chairs were added to the Executive Committee.
Other Actions by the Committee
In other actions, after hearing a report from Vice Chair Robert Thomas and Secretary Amanda Scotti about ideas for marketing MTF, the Committee voted to establish a Special Marketing Subcommittee to develop the concepts and begin to take action. It is anticipated that there will be a move to create a regular Marketing Subcommittee by amending the Operating Procedures at next year’s Annual Meeting.
Treasurer Mike Travers presented the $221,500 2022 MTF Budget, which represents a 24% increase from 2021. However, it is still short of the original 2020 budget approved in 2019, which was $251,750. The MTF budget cuts the past two years have been very similar to those suffered by other committees. The Committee adopted the proposed 2022 budget.
Records Subcommittee Chair Dave Bickel submitted 79 American Masters Age Group track and field records to the Committee for ratification. They were ratified and can be viewed here, together with an explanation of the ratification process.
