WMRA News for 2011: great activity worldwide.
Bruno Gozzelino (President), Nancy Hobbs (Treasurer), Raimondo Balicco (Director of Competition), Erhan Basoglu (Director of Marketing), Wolfgang Munzel (Director of Organisation), , Galia Puhaleva (Council Member), Tomo Sarf (Director of Development), Norma Hughes (In Emeritus), Pierre Weiss (IAAF General Secretary), Otto Klappert (Chairman IAAF Cross Country Committee) and Carlos Cardoso (Member of IAAF Cross Country Committee) were present (photo in Montecarlo). ,
Many important decisions were taken during the meeting.
" "Next 27th WMRA 2011 World Championships , on 11th September 2011 will be held in Tirana (Albania) thanking a great enforce by FSHA with his President Gì,jergj Ruli and all staff in FSHA, but also thanking great financial support by Albania Government. WMRA will guarantee that the standard of the event be available for a world event and the track will respect WMRA technical parameters. WMRA Council hope that there will be record of participation with new Federations present. For the 28th WMRA 2012 World Championships there are no applications at the moment. ,WMRA - unanimously - decided to staged the 13th WMRA Grand Prix 2011.
13th WMRA Grand Prix 2011 will be formed by six international mountain races: on 22nd May the 2nd International race relay in Arco di Trento (ITA), on 2nd June the 31st La Monté,e du Grand Ballon in Willer sur Thur/Goldbach (FRA), on 24th July the 13th Grintovec international Mountain race in Kamnik (SLO), on 31st July the 3rd Mayrhofen Harakiri Run in Mayrhofen (AUT), on 11th September the 27th WMRA World Mountain Running Championships in Tirana (ALB) and on 1st October the 32nd Smarna Gora International mountain race in Ljubljana (SLO).
Five races scheduled in this 13th WMRA Grand Prix will obtain the status of ",IAAF Mountain Running Permit",, whilst 27th WMRA World Mountain Running Championships will be held ",under IAAF Patronage",: WMRA wishes thank IAAF for this important status. Financial contribution in favour of WMRA requested to the LOC will be really very small, because the final amount for final money prize will be paid by WMRA. Of course anti-doping control - like in the past years - will be on charge of LOC.
All other regulations of 13th WMRA Grand Prix 2011 are printed in the WMRA webpage. WMRA Delegates for 13th WMRA Grand Prix 2011 were confirmed: Wolfgang Munzel and Tomo Sarf.
Basoglu (Marketing Director) is working for finding new sponsor whilst Innov 8 confirmed also for next three year their cooperation with WMRA. Since now WMRA Council decided that on next year, the final race of the Grand Prix 2012 will be held in Bursa, Turkey.
The WMRA Council renamed the most important international race for Youth: the new title ",International Youth Cup", would be used in 2012 (",Cup", instead of ",Challenge",).
Starting on 2011, WMRA will pay 200euros support for travel to each Federations present, but Federations must pay before this race the annual fee as WMRA membership (travel support to be paid out at the event by WMRA delegate).
The 6th WMRA International Youth Challenge 2011 will be held Gorenia vas, SLO) 25th June. For 7th WMRA International Youth Cup 2012 Russia would like to bid for this event in the town of Udmurtia, Debes. , They are inviting teams for a race this year on 13th August 2011. It will be a mixed relay race. Then had been no official applications but Germany expressed an interest for either 2012 or 2013.
The 8th WMRA World Long Distance Mountain Running Challenge 2011 will be run in Podbrdo (Slovenia) on 18th June, instead the 9th WMRA World Long Distance Mountain Running Challenge 2012 will be run on Jungfrau race (Switzerland) probably on 8th September, (date must be linked ,with the date of World Championships). , This year the race will be in a new venue and WMRA believe that it will be a great presence of runners.
The 10th WMRA/WMA Masters World Mountain Running Championships 2011 will be held in Paluzza (Italy) the village were born and live the Olympic Sky Champion, Manuela and Giorgio Di Centa: Andrea Di Centa, another brother, is the chairman of LOC. Competition will be certainly a great event and the track (up and down) race will offer an interesting chance to all master runners who will come there. For Master W. Ch. 2012 a German bid arrived by the city of Buhlertal whilst for Master W. CH. 2013 pole position for organising this event there is the Czech bid of the city of Janské, Lá,zně,. There is interest from Telfes (AUT) for 2014.
Finally, WMRA Council had been agreed with WMA that there would be no category from 2011 onwards for age 80+ and that Master 80+ years old are not allowed to run at all. Letter will be sent to LOC MWMRCh. 2011.
Very important are the IAAF Area Championships: NACAC Championships would take place this year in Mexico on 17th July, the European in Turkey, the CONSUDATLE in Venezuela and the AAC once again in Nigeria. Then 3rd Mountain Running Balkan Championships this year will take place in Dimitrovgrad (Serbia). The 2nd Commonwealth Championships in 2011 would take place in Wales, (Great Britain), over the weekend of 23/24 September.
The WMRA Council looked at the present Constitution and agreed unanimously to the changes to propose to the next WMRA Congress.
During next WMRA Congress , 2011 there will also the election of five WMRA Council members (four WMRA Directors plus a female in the reserved position). WMRA Council unanimously agreed that - following rule 8.4. of WMRA Constitution - WMRA Council will co-opt WMRA Secretary with a decision that will taken during next WMRA Council meeting on September 2011.
WMRA declared to be in favour in case that EA will propose on next future the European Under 23 Mountain Running Championships. During EA Convention in Belgrade on last 16 October 2010, Philippe Llamblin and Bruno Gozzelino as Chairman and member of EA Mountain Running Commission spoke about Mountain Running: it was a very important moment for our discipline.
Other items were discussed like Eligibility WMRA Council was unanimously agreed that WMRA should follow IAAF Rules regarding eligibility: decision will be proposed to the WMRA World Congress) and that WMRA should think about this label system for future races, especially for Grand Prix races and the Long Distance Challenge.
In the meantime, in February, after the date of WMRA Council meeting, Elisa Desco has been sentenced for a two-year ban by the Italian authorities, she has one month to make an appeal of this decision. WMRA is waiting final decision before to take any kind of decision regarding result of World Mountain Running Championships 2009.
WMRA Council thanked IAAF for all its support for the WMRA activity (and also for the war against doping).
For the future a great work is waiting all WMRA Council members but WMRA Council is confident to find more cooperation by the LOC of the races, specially for the World Mountain Running Championships.
by Bruno Gozzelino (WMRA President)