Americans dodge bullets in 2008 schedule, but not ’09
Several folks have expressed concern about the 2008 indoor schedule. Turns out their worst fears won’t be realized. The 2008 WMA world indoor championships in Clermont-Ferrand, France, will be March 17-21, 2008. The USATF masters indoor nationals will be March 28-30, 2008, according to the host Reggie Lewis Center in Boston. So it’s still possible to attend both. The news for 2009 is grim, however. The National Senior Olympics will be held August 1-15, 2009, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The WMA world outdoor championships are July 28 to August 8, 2009, in Lahti, Finland. And the 2009 USATF masters nationals in Clermont, Florida? The meet traditionally is held the first week of August.
Since the track meet at the 2007 National Senior Olympics in Louisville was held the last week of the overall event, it’s possible the 2009 meet at Stanford University won’t run concurrently with the 2009 USATF masters outdoor nationals in Florida. But wow. Americans 50-and-over can forget hitting all three major outdoor meets.
In any case, if the August choice is between the Bay Area and Central Florida, many will say: Palo Alto, here I come!
BTW, here’s the story behind the French indoor worlds in 2008:
The two WMA Technical Delegates, Brian Keaveney and Rex Harvey, and the WMA Organizational Delegate, Monty Hacker were in Clermont-Ferrand for a technical assistance meeting with their LOC in February 2007.
At that meeting, the dates were announced as 17-22 March 2008. The reason for these dates is because of the IAAF World Indoor Championships being held in Spain 7-9 March and is a lot of involvement in the IAAF by those organizing the C-F WMA Championships.
Also there is the fact that there is a three-day national election in France the weekend of 14-16 March which occupies a lot of the officials and administrators. They don’t even expect to have full local attendance at the Technical Meeting to be held Sunday Evening, but we told them it needed to go on for the team managers etc. And they plan to have their welcoming ceremony a little later in the week.
The only 2009 dates I’m not sure about are for the Florida masters nationals. I hope to hear from the local organizers on whether their meet can avoid overlap with the National Senior Olympics and the Finland world meet. Let’s hope.
3 Responses
The track and field part of the National Senior Games is divided by age groups with the older competitors competing the first 5-6 days and the younger ones following that. Given the absolute lack of attention paid to the older competitors (65 and up) by this blog, I am not surprised that you think that the only track and field competitors were the 50-64 year olds who competed the “second week”.
The schedule you have posted above for the NSG and WMA absolutely clash – for all tracj and field competitors 50 and up, so a handful of folks may have to make a hard choice and maybe save some the money and go to Stanford rather than travel to very expensive Finland. If the USATF Masters meet conflicts with either WMA and NSG- well – you get what you deserve I guess. Personally I am not planning on going to Florida to compete in August – no problem for me – but I would like to go to Stanford for the NSG and to Finland for the WMA. I am likely to go to the meet that gives me the best competition – and that would be the WMA in Finland. The numbers are great in the various age groups for the NSG track and field -but the level of competition is much better at the WMA.
The dates for Finland may be a work in progress – I have seen dates for the WMA meet be “cast in stone” only to be changed later.
For our master Firefighters and Police Officers, lets don’t forget the World Police and Fire Games, which will be held during the same week in 2009 in Vancouver, Canada. That’s where I’m going.
Do you have any info on the 2008 World Indoor Championship such as the schedule and venue?
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