For many athletes, the season seemed to have ended but there is good news from World Athletics as international athletics season of one-day meetings will hold between August and October this year following the commitment of most Continental Tour Gold and Wanda Diamond League meeting directors to organise their events on rescheduled dates in 2020.
This will for sure motivate athletes to keep working hard the best way they can despite the lockdown. A small number of countries will be able to stage meetings through June and July (Oslo’s Bislett Games will go ahead in an altered format called The Impossible Games on 11 June), but according to reports, the international season is likely to commence in earnest directly after the National Championships window of 8-9 August.
The world governing body had earlier announced Aug 8-9 as dates for member nations to host their National Championships despite the Olympic qualifications aren’t opened till ending on the year.
Eight of the ten Continental Tour Gold meetings originally scheduled for 2020 have been confirmed for this year, although many have been rescheduled to fall between August and October with over $200,000 cash prize at each meet.
Interestingly, the Wanda Diamond Leagues won’t be using points and they won’t be any overall winner. The one-day meetings will begin with the Monaco meeting on 14 August and continue through until mid-October.
According to World Athletics, “The Diamond League organisers have announced that these will be individual meetings and will not include a series point score, so there will be no overall league winners this year and the final in Zurich will not be held.”
This has returned hope to athletes who had thought all their hard work was going down the drain and this news has fueled many others who didn’t give up.
Keep staying safe and kit.
This period shall pass!?