NEW WORLD CUP FORMAT ANNOUNCED AS IAAF COUNCIL MEETING CONCLUDES IN MONACO

By Bob Ramsak
(c) 2008 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved - used with permission

MONTE CARLO, Monaco – A new format for the IAAF World Cup, the possible inclusion of cross country into the Olympic program and the high profile mid-summer suspensions of leading Russian athletes were among the key topics discussed at the two-day meeting of the IAAF Council which concluded today in Monte Carlo.

The new setup unveiled for the quadrennial World Cup, the IAAF’s only international track and field team competition, features a dramatic shift from the format in use since the meet’s inception in 1977. The new format, which will be introduced at its next edition in Split, Croatia, in September 2010, will consist of four continental teams, representing Africa, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe, with two athletes per team in each individual event, and three athletes in the 1500m, 3000m, 5000m and 3000m steeplechase. Additionally, only an overall combined men’s and women’s champion will be crowned.

Precisely how the teams will be picked and who will lead the teams has yet to be ironed out, but the consensus, based upon feedback from athletes, media and the public, said IAAF spokesman Nick Davies, was that the competition is worth continuing, albeit with a significant facelift.

- Cross Country in the Winter Olympic Games?

That’s an admittedly unlikely scenario backed by IAAF president Lamine Diack. Earlier this year, Haile Gebreselassie, Kenenisa Bekele and Paul Tergat wrote a letter to International Olympic Committee chief Jacques Rogge requesting that cross country, last contested in the Olympics in 1924, be returned to the Olympic program. Diack followed up their request with a letter of his own to Rogge, backing the measure.

The IOC’s initial reply was that any sports on the winter program must be contested on “snow or ice”. But adding the footraces to the summer Games is out of the question, Diack said, since the inclusion of new events would require the cutting of others from the track and field program.

- Challenge to Russian Federation Over Timing of High Profile Suspensions?

The IAAF will decide by November 26 whether to challenge the All Russia Athletics Federation over the timing of doping suspensions handed down to six athletes on the eve of the Beijing Olympic Games.

The group of suspended athletes, which includes two-time world 1500m champion Tatyana Tomashova and Yelena Soboleva, who lost her 2008 world indoor title and world record in the 1500 due to her doping bust, were found guilty of manipulating and substituting urine tests following a year-long investigation by the global governing body.

Russian athletics authorities back-dated the start of the bans to April and May 2007, corresponding with the athletes' initial positive tests, contrary to IAAF rules which state that athletes are deemed ineligible from the date they were first suspended.

Whether the decision will be challenged will be decided next week, said Diack, a member of the three member Doping Review Board this is studying the case.

Pierre Weiss, the IAAF’s General Secretary, suggested that the decision could also include a recommendation to increase the length of the suspensions from two years to four.

“If we go to CAS there are two questions,” said Weiss, who is not a member of the review board. “The date of the start of the suspension, and also the duration of the suspension.”

“We could ask for four years,” Weiss said. “We don’t consider this just a doping offense. It’s (even worse) cheating.”

Following its targeted investigation, which included DNA analysis for the first time, the IAAF presented their findings to the All Russia Athletics Federation in June, which then held its own hearings on the matter. A third test of each athlete, conducted in late July, confirmed the initial findings, leading to the provisional suspensions on the eve of the Beijing Games.

“We had to speed up the process,” Weiss said, to avoid the possibility of medal winning athletes later testing positive on the sport’s biggest stage. “We had to send a message to athletes that we are actively looking for those who cheat.”

Key future competition dates and venues were also decided. The 2010 World Athletics Final will take place in Rabat, Morocco, on September 11-12, the first time that the season-capping event in its present form will be contested outside of Europe. The 2010 World Half Marathon Championships will be held in Nanning, China, on October 9, and the 2011 edition of the World Youth Championships will take place in Lille, France.

ENDS