There are big changes coming to which meets are going to count for World Athletics rankings and qualifications.
For meets to count, they MUST appear on the new World Athletics Global Calendar.
I have not yet heard a definitive answer as to whether or not meets run under NCAA rules can be added to the calendar. It is possible that no college meets will count, and even if they are allowed, hard to imagine many college meet directors jumping through the hoops.
I am fairly confident that USATF will continue to accept marks from college meets for the purpose of qualifying to USATF Nationals. This is an issue around international qualification.
If you are a meet director who puts on meets that athletes use to try and improve their international rankings and/or to achieve international qualification standards, I recommend:
- Sign up for an account at https://globalcalendar.worldathletics.org USATF will have to approve your account, so getting that ball rolling ASAP is a good idea.
- If you know the date and location of your event, start the USATF sanction process now. It is possible that meets will need to have their USATF sanction in place before they can be added to the Global Calendar, so having that out of the way is helpful.
- Plan ahead. Meets March 1 and beyond must be registered at least 60 days in advance. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but do your athletes a favor and start this process now, do not wait until the last minute.
I guess the upside of this system is more transparency for the athletes around which marks will count for what purposes.
It is totally fine for meet directors to run meets that do not count at this level, and fine for elite athletes to compete in meets that don’t “count” at that level, everyone just needs to be on the same page about it.
