World Athletics

Governance

World Athletics is headed by a president. The World Athletics Council has a total of 26 elected members, comprising one president, four vice-presidents (one senior), the presidents of the six area associations, two members of the Athletes' Commission, and 13 Council members. Each member of the Council is elected for a four-year period by the World Athletics Congress, a biennial gathering of athletics officials that consists of the Council, Honorary Members, and up to three delegates from each of the national member federations. Chairpersons and members of Committees, which manage specialist portfolios, are also elected by the Congress. There are four committees: the Cross Country Committee, the Race Walking Committee, the Technical Committee, and the Women's Committee. A further three committees were launched in 2019: Development, Governance and Competitions. The governance structure is outlined in the World Athletics Constitution, which may be amended by the Congress.

The World Athletics Council appoints a chief executive officer (CEO), who is focused on improving the coverage of the sport and the organisation's commercial interests. This role was created and merged with the General Secretary role that had existed previously. British former athlete and businessman Jon Ridgeon was appointed to the role in December 2018. Olivier Gers was the first person to officially hold the position in 2016, succeeding the interim CEO/General Secretary Jean Gracia.

In order to give active athletes a voice in the governance of the sport, World Athletics created the Athletes' Commission. Athletes are elected to the commission by other athletes, typically held at the Congress attached to the World Athletics Championships. The commission chairperson and one other athlete of the opposite sex are given voting rights on the Council. The last election was held in October 2019 at the 2019 World Athletics Championships.

Following doping and corruption issues, a Code of Ethics was agreed upon in 2013 and an Ethics Commission was appointed in 2014. The Council appoints the chairperson from the elected members, and in turn, the chairperson appoints a deputy chair. The Ethics Board's scope was limited in 2017 with the creation of the independent Athletics Integrity Unit, headed by Australia's Brett Clothier, to oversee ethical issues and complaints at arm's length.

The International Athletics Foundation is a charity closely associated with World Athletics that engages in projects and programmes to develop the sport. Albert II, Prince of Monaco is the Honorary President and the role of IAF President is held by the World Athletics President. A World Athletics Heritage department was created in 2018 to maintain historic artifacts and display them through a physical gallery in Monaco, a virtual online gallery, and a traveling exhibition. The department also issues World Athletics Heritage Plaques to commemorate locations of historic interest to the sport.

Presidents

There have been six presidents since the establishment of World Athletics:

World Athletics Council

Athletes' Commission

Members elected in 2019

Following

• Renaud Lavillenie (FRA), 627 votes
• Valerie Adams (NZL), 613 votes
• Bernard Lagat (USA), 589 votes
• Kevin Borlée (BEL), 572 votes
• Katerina Stefanidi (GRE), 556 votes
• Aisha Praught-Leer (JAM), votes

Existing members

• Iñaki Gómez (CAN)
• Kim Collins (SKN)
• Adam Kszczot (POL)
• Thomas Röhler (GER)
• Ivana Španović (SRB)
• Benita Willis (AUS)

Chairpersons

• Athletes' Commission: Iñaki Gómez (CAN)
• Ethics Board: Michael Beloff (GBR)
• Cross Country Committee: Carlos Cardoso (POR)
• Race Walking Committee: Maurizio Damilano (ITA)
• Technical Committee: Jorge Salcedo (POR)
• Women's Committee: Esther Fittko (GER)
• Athletics Integrity Unit: David Howman (NZL)

Area associations

World Athletics has a total of 214 member federations divided into 6 area associations.

AAA – Asian Athletics Association in Asia

CAA – Confederation of African Athletics in Africa

CONSUDATLE – Confederación Sudamericana de Atletismo in South America

EAA – European Athletic Association in Europe

NACAC – North American, Central American and Caribbean Athletic Association in North America

OAA – Oceania Athletics Association in Oceania

Partner organisations

As of 1 November 2015:

• Association of International Marathons and Distance Races (AIMS)
• International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU)
• International Paralympic Committee (IPC Athletics)
• International Trail Running Association (ITRA)
• World Masters Athletics (WMA)
• World Mountain Running Association (WMRA)
• Elite Ltd (for incorporation of statistics from all-athletics.com into World Athletics website)

Rules and regulations

Age

To allow athletes of different ages to compete against athletes of similar ability, several age categories are maintained. The open class of competition without age limit is defined as "senior". For younger athletes, World Athletics organises events for under-20 athletes (athletes aged 18 or 19 years on 31 December of the year of the competition) as well as under-18 athletes (athletes aged 16 or 17 years on 31 December of the year of the competition), historically referred to as "junior" and "youth" age groups, respectively. Age-group competitions over the age of 35 are organised by World Masters Athletics and are divided into five-year groupings.

Doping

The organisation is a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Agency's World Anti-Doping Code and applies sanctions to athletes, coaches and other sportspeople who breach the code through doping or impeding any anti-doping actions. Doping is still a serious issue in world athletics due to the increased use of banned substances by athletes to improve their athletic performance. To address the problem, athletes participating in sports are required to sign the World Anti-Doping Agency code and are subjected to random urine or blood samples testing, leading to penalties like game suspension, or lifetime ban for violating code.

Sex

International level athletics competitions are mostly divided by sex and World Athletics applies eligibility rules for the women's category. World Athletics has regulations for intersex and transgender athletes. The differences of sex development (DSD) regulations apply to athletes who are legally female or intersex and have certain physiology. DSD athletes who are legally female or intersex are subject to specific rules if they have XY male chromosomes, testes rather than ovaries, circulating testosterone in the typical male range (7.7 to 29.4 nmol/L), and are androgen-sensitive so that their bodies make use of that testosterone. World Athletics requires any such athlete to reduce their blood testosterone level to 5 nmol/L or lower for a six-month period before becoming eligible for international competition.

The rules have been challenged by affected athletes in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), though no athlete has done so successfully. In May 2019, CAS upheld the rules on the basis that discrimination against the minority of DSD athletes was proportional as a method of preserving access to the female category to a much larger majority of women without DSDs.

In 2023, World Athletics tightened their regulations further, excluding transgender women who have gone through male puberty from competing in the female category. The new regulations also reduced the testosterone limit for androgen-sensitive XY DSD athletes to 2.5 nmol/L and extended the limit to apply to all women's events, where it had previously only applied to track events of distances between 400 m and one mile. World Athletics president Sebastian Coe described this as "decisive action to protect the female category in our sport".

Equipment

Ban on clothing, shoes and other equipment that give an unfair advantage. Such as a max stack height of 40 mm and limiting shoes to one rigid plate per shoe for marathons.

Certified athletic facilities

World Athletics provides approval certificates to venues of athletic facilities: Class 1, Class 2 and Indoor. To receive certification, venues are required to submit measurement reports of their track and field facilities.

Class 1 venues are fully certified along with in-situ tests of the actual synthetic track surface, whilst Class 2 venues only ensures that the synthetic surface has a valid Product Certificate (from an accredited synthetic track surface manufacturer) and the facility conforms to the stringent requirements for accurate measurement contained in World Athletics Rules and Regulations.

Competitions

World Athletics organizes major athletics competitions worldwide.

World Athletics Series

^† Formerly IAAF World Championships in Athletics

^‡ Known as the World Athletics Half Marathon Championships before 2023, except for in 2006 and 2007 when it was known as the IAAF World Road Running Championships, with a 20 km race in 2006

^†† Formerly IAAF World Junior Championships

^††† Formerly IAAF World Race Walking Cup

^†††† Formerly IAAF World Cup

One-day events

World Athletics became involved in annual one-day meetings as the sport began to professionalise in the late 1970s. Between 1978 and 1982, World Athletics staged twelve Golden Events, all for men and principally in track running, which saw World Athletics offer prizes to encourage competition. Three years later in 1985, an annual track and field circuit was created in the form of the IAAF Grand Prix, which linked existing top-level one-day meetings with a season-ending IAAF Grand Prix Final for a selection of men's and women's events. The IAAF World Cross Challenge followed in 1990 and began an annual series for cross country running. The track and field circuit was expanded in 1993 with the creation of the IAAF Grand Prix II level, and the IAAF Golden League in 1998. World Athletics began recognising annual indoor track meets via the IAAF Indoor Permit Meetings series in 1997, and in 1998 decathletes and heptathletes found seasonal support with the creation of the IAAF Combined Events Challenge. The World Cross Challenge was disbanded in 2000 and cross country reverted to a permit format via the IAAF Cross Country Permit Meetings. The IAAF Race Walking Challenge was initiated in 2003 to provide a seasonal calendar for racewalking.

World Athletics reformed its track and field circuit in 2003, with the IAAF World Outdoor Meetings series grouping five tiers of annual track and field competitions: the Golden League, IAAF Super Grand Prix, Grand Prix, Grand Prix II, and the IAAF World Athletics Final. The new final format was introduced with a new global performance ranking system for qualification and featured an increased programme of track and field events, mirroring the World Championships in Athletics programme bar the road events, combined events, relays, and the 10,000 metres. The final achieved gender parity in events in 2005, with the inclusion of a women's 3000 metres steeplechase. The track and field circuit was rebranded as the IAAF World Athletics Tour in 2006, which removed the global rankings and the IAAF Grand Prix II (replaced with a level of meetings given permit status by continental governing bodies). With World Athletics having recognised the sport of mountain running in 2002, the annual WMRA World Cup meetings received official sanctioning in 2006, organised under World Mountain Running Association. The IAAF Race Walking Challenge Final was created in 2007 to serve as a seasonal final for the Race Walking Challenge. World Athletics designed a sanctioning process for the road running competitions in 2008, with races having to meet organisational requirements to achieve Gold or Silver status under the IAAF Road Race Label Events brand. This incorporated the World Marathon Majors (a privately run series for major marathons initiated in 2006) within the Gold Label category. Road running was the last sport governed by World Athletics to receive seasonal sanctioning.

The 2010 season saw several changes to World Athletics' one-day governance. The World Athletics Tour was made defunct and replaced with three separate series: the 14-meet Diamond League as the top level of track meetings, the IAAF World Challenge as a second tier of track meetings, and the IAAF Hammer Throw Challenge as the top level of hammer throwing contests (as hammer was not included in the Diamond League). The Road Race Label grouping was also expanded that year with the creation of a Bronze label status. The Race Walking Challenge Final was removed from the racewalking schedule after 2012, as the series focused on international championship performances. In 2016, the IAAF World Indoor Tour was introduced as a replacement of the Indoor Permit Meetings series.

The track and field circuit is due for further changes in 2020, including an increase in the number of Diamond League meetings, the reduction of Diamond League events from 32 to 24, reduction of the Diamond League television running time to 90 minutes, the creation of a one-day Diamond League final, and the relaunch of the World Challenge series as the World Athletics Continental Tour.

Awards

The organisation hosts the annual World Athletics Awards, formerly the World Athletics Gala until 2017, at the end of each year to recognise the achievements of athletes and other people involved in the sport. Members may also be inducted into the IAAF Hall of Fame as part of the ceremony. The following awards are given:

• Male Athlete of the Year
• Female Athlete of the Year
• Male Rising Star Award
• Female Rising Star Award
• Coaching Achievement Award
• Distinguished Career Award
• Women's Award
• President's Award
• Athletics Photograph of the Year

Separately, the World Athletics Heritage Plaque award was launched in December 2018. The plaque is a location-based recognition that can be awarded in five different and broad overlapping categories: city, competition, legend, landmark, culture. Each year the World Athletics will periodically award plaques taking advantage of appropriate moments in the international athletics calendar to make those announcements.

Doping controversy

In 2015, a whistleblower leaked World Athletics' blood test records from major competitions. The records revealed that, between 2001 and 2012, athletes with suspicious drug test results won a third of the medals in endurance events at the Olympics and World Championships—a total of 146 medals including 55 golds—but the World Athletics caught none of them. After reviewing the results, Robin Parisotto, a scientist and leading "anti-doping" expert, said, "Never have I seen such an alarmingly abnormal set of blood values. So many athletes appear to have doped with impunity, and it is damning that the IAAF appears to have idly sat by and let this happen." Craig Reedie, president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said his organisation was "very disturbed by these new allegations ... which will, once again, shake the foundation of clean athletes worldwide", and that its "independent commission will investigate the claims".

Around the same time, the University of Tübingen in Germany claimed that World Athletics suppressed publication of a 2011 report in which "[h]undreds of athletes", as many as a third of the world's top athletes, "admitted violating anti-doping rules".

On 1 November 2015, former World Athletics president Lamine Diack was arrested in France and is under investigation on suspicion of corruption and money laundering. Diack allegedly accepted "$1.2 million from the Russian athletics federation to cover up the positive doping tests of at least six Russian athletes in 2011." The IOC provisionally suspended Diack, and he resigned his position as an IOC Honorary Member. In 2016, the World Anti-Doping Agency reported that with his influence, Diack was able to install two of his sons and a friend into positions that exerted influence over the IAAF. The report says that Lamine Diack "was responsible for organizing and enabling the conspiracy and corruption that took place in the IAAF." In 2018, Diack was handed an additional charge of "breach of trust" by French prosecutors. On 18 June 2020, the trial of Diack and five other people, including his son, concluded. Diack was sentenced to jail for four years, two of them suspended.

In November 2015, WADA published its report, which found "systemic failures" in the World Athletics had prevented an "effective" anti-doping programme and concluded that Russia should be banned from competing in international competitions because of its athletes' test results. The report continued that "the World Athletics allowed the conduct to occur and must accept its responsibility" and that "corruption was embedded" in the organization.

In January 2016, as a result of the doping scandal and WADA's report, the World Athletics' biggest sponsor, Adidas, announced that it was ending its sponsorship deal with the World Athletics four years early. The BBC reported that as a result World Athletics would lose $33 million (£23 million) worth of revenue. The 11-year sponsorship deal with Adidas was due to run until 2019. World-record holding sprinter Michael Johnson described the scandal as more serious than that faced by FIFA. In February 2016, Nestlé announced that it was ending its World Athletics sponsorship.

In June 2016, following a meeting of the IAAF's ruling council, World Athletics upheld its ban on Russia's track and field team from entering the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. In February 2017, All-Russia Athletic Federation was disqualified by decision of the World Athletics Council for eight years for the creation of a doping system.

World Athletics has since resisted demands that Russia be re-instated, on the basis that the country repeatedly failed to satisfy all the agreed criteria. The decision was supported by Sean Ingle of The Guardian who wrote in a column that World Athletics should maintain their ban on Russia through the 2016 Olympics in Rio. That meant Russian athletes could not compete at all major events in the following years, including the 2017 IAAF World Championships in London and the 2018 European Championships in Berlin. In September 2018, World Athletics faced a legal challenge by Russia to overturn the suspension after the reinstatement of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, but Hugo Lowell of the i newspaper reported the country's status would not change. The legal case was later dropped.

Russian suspension

World Athletics was the first international sporting body to suspend the Russian Athletics Federation (RAF) from World Athletics starting in 2015, for eight years, due to doping violations, making it ineligible to host World Athletics events or send teams to international championships. However, Russian athletes were eligible to compete pursuant to the Authorised Neutral Athlete (ANA) process.

In 2022, though, World Athletics imposed sanctions against the Member Federations of Russia and Belarus because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and all athletes, support personnel, and officials from Russia and Belarus were excluded from all World Athletics Series events for the foreseeable future, and Russian athletes who had received ANA status for 2022 were excluded from World Athletics Series events for the foreseeable future. World Athletics Council also applied sanctions on the Belarus Athletic Federation, including banning its hosting of any international or European athletics events, representation at Congress or in decisions which require Congressional votes, involvement of its personnel in programs, and accreditation to attend any World Athletics Series events.

In March 2023, the World Athletics Council restored the full-fledged status of the RAF. In March 2026, doping-related sanctions have been lifted.