WMRA News for 2012: More financial support to Nations and to Athletes.
The Director of Marketing, Erhan Basoglu, has acquired substantial backing from sponsors who wish to share their passion with Mountain Running (further sponsorship backing will be announced soon). His contribution was applauded by the council members and the IAAF delegates.
All WMRA Council member work for WMRA as unpaid and passionate volunteers. All the money raised is used for mountain running activity and for this reasons WMRA Council unanimously decided:
1) the prize fund for the World Mountain Running Grand Prix 2012 will be doubled to $20 000 (exactly 18.000,00 euros), without asking nothing more than in the past years to the LOC of the races , (WMRA will pay this prize found at the Final GP race in Turkey),
2) the contributions for the International Youth Cup 2012 will be increased to 300,00 euros for complete teams male and female (six athletes it means to receive 600,00 euros) and 100,00 euros for incomplete teams traveling internationally to the event." "
Many ideas were shared to further develop our discipline at both grass roots and at elite levels. There were many discussions and updates on the major fixtures in Mountain running for 2012. ,
Post event reports for the major fixtures of 2011 were also discussed at length.
The WMRA Relay Trophy was established for 3 male and 3 female athletes: It is possible the first edition could be Trofeo Vanoni 2012, at Morbegno, Italy, or in 2013. Also CISM World Mountain Running Championships is another goal that WMRA has followed together with our friends in the Sport Military Association. , The Work by the CISM President is applauded as is the work of many nations and particularly Serbia.
The calendar for 2012 has been live on this web site and is expected to be updated with fixtures for individual nations once they have been forwarded to the WMRA.
The future looks bright and exciting with organisation of the 2012 World Championships in Italy well under way. Raimondo Balicco was appointed Organisational Delegate , with , Tomo Sarf , the Technical delegate.
The 2013 World Championships is geared to , Poland (Organisational Delegate: Galia Puhaleva and Technical Delegate: Wolfgang Munzel). ,
Nigeria is trying for making a bid for the World Championships in 2014.
Wales (with support by UK) is interested for the organisation of the World Championships in 2015.
WMRA Council welcomed new IAAF General Secretary Essar Gabriel during the dinner on Saturday evening and thanked Paul Hardy and Sean Wallance-Jones (both IAAF Delegate) and David Okeyo (Chairman of IAAF Cross Country Committee) for their presence at the meeting and the IAAF for all support with Mountain Running in recent years.
Norman Wilson (IAU) was also acknowledged for his positive contributions and in particular for his work with the Commonwealth Championships. , The next Commonwealth Mountain Running Championships may be in South Africa on 2013 and we are working hard to secure this as a successful bid. A presentation was made to Norma Hughes for the excellent work over the years and in particular for the contributions for the WMRA newsletter.
Special greetings to Pierre Weiss, who resigned by IAAF General Secretary, after having supported Mountain Running for over 20 years! The WMRA hopes that Pierre Weiss will continue his excellent support for our sport and is always a great friend of the Mountain running community.
The WMRA thanks the work and the relationships with Federations and LOC that WMRA President, Bruno Gozzelino, is developing: for example, , Albania or other LOC where nobody believed it possible to have a World Championships.
With technology improving all the time we can expect more expertise at our events and better media coverage to enhance the great work of our marketing guru, Erhan Basoglu.
It was stated that Federations should ideally bring massage therapists and photographers to share and promote our wonderful sport.
Finally WMRA President, Bruno Gozzelino, will follow also a new WMRA Constitution and Arbitration rules in order to make WMRA an even better structure regarding legal and administrative aspects: thank to the lawyer Huw Roberts (IAAF) for his support in this job.
During last weekend also the annual IAAF/WMRA Antidoping meeting was held in Montecarlo, where important aspects regarding this matters were discussed in presence of Gabriel Dollè, and Thomas Capdeveille (both IAAF), ,Bruno Gozzelino, Tomo sarf and Sonja Ambrosy (from WMRA). ,
Finally, the WMRA is delighted to announce Nancy Hobbs (WMRA Treasurer) was ,awarded the USA Women's Trailblazer Award for her outstanding ,contributions to the sport in January 2012.
News edited by Bruno Gozzelino (WMRA President) ,and Bashir Hussain (WMRA General Secretary)
Photos by Nancy Hobbs (WMRA Treasurer)
on front page: from left: Norma Hughes, Raimodo Balicco (WMRA Director of Competition), Bashir Hussain (WMRA Secretary), Paul Hardy (IAAF), Erhan Basoglu (WMRA Director of Marketing), Wolfgang Munzel (WMRA Director of Organisation), David Okeyo (Chairman of IAAF Cross Country Committee), Galia Puhaleva (WMRA At-Large Director), Bruno Gozzelino (WMRA President), Nancy Hobbs (WMRA Treasurer), Sean Wallance-Jones (IAAF) and Tomo Sarf (WMRA Director of Development).
on second page:
- Norma Highes and Bruno Gozzelino
- Nancy Hobbs with Women's Traiblazer Award