Season-ending elite meet plans cancelled because of safety

INDIANAPOLIS — USA Track & Field (USATF) plans for a mid-September end-of-season elite event in 2020 have been cancelled. 

Since April, an advisory group of USATF High Performance Committee members, volunteer leadership and National Office staff (Scheduling Advisory Group) routinely met to develop and study the possibility of an end-of-season event for elite athletes. The top priority in this planning is mitigating risk for athletes, coaches, officials and staff who would travel to the event. In the end, the safety hurdles were too steep to overcome and the group unanimously decided against such an event.

At the center of the decision was the guidance from USATF’s Covid-19 Working Group. That guidance, based on pandemic information and projections from the World Health Organization and the Center for Disease Control, as well as the USOPC’s COVID -19 Working group, resulted in a unanimous recommendation advising against conducting a large mass gathering event involving travel by participants from all regions of the country. The Scheduling Advisory Group followed the recommendations of those medical professionals and scientists, deeming the health, safety and welfare of its elite athletes, officials and support personnel as of paramount importance. The decision was difficult but necessary considering the risk.
 
Since the inception of the pandemic, USATF has looked for innovative ways to support our athletes during this crisis. Towards that end, USATF has and/or will:

• Instituted a stipend allowing elite athletes to purchase training equipment to use in homes while “stay at home orders” were in place.
• Provided elite athletes with a monetary stipend.
• Re-modeled budgets in order to provide block-grant support to elite and emerging elite athletes to compete in domestic competitions of their choosing.
• Athlete Tier stipends and benefits, including Elite Athlete Health Insurance and medical support programs, remain unchanged for 2020.
• Developed a national program to provide COVID-19 PCR testing for elite athletes who need clearance to compete.
• Partner with regional & local meets in televising/broadcasting these competitions.
• Developed an athlete marketing stipend program to provide financial assistance to elite athletes as they promote USATF.

 
This decision to not hold an end-of-season event, although difficult, was necessary at this extraordinary time. The team is dedicated to assisting the athletes and will continue its forward-thinking approach to that effort. USATF will continue efforts to support various small-sized regional and local meets this summer for elite athletes in the USA, including providing medical advice to structure events to meet USATF Event Hosting Guidelines and help keep athletes, officials, and coaches safe.