Budapest beats Valencia to host 2014 world indoor meet
WMA delegates voted 72-59 to hold the 2014 world masters indoor championships in Budapest, Hungary, which beat a rival bid by Valencia, Spain. Certification of the vote was delayed because the number of votes cast didn’t match the number of delegates. David Pain, founder of masters track, arrived with his wife, Linda, and former National Masters News publisher and editor Al Sheahen just before the vote tally was shown on a whiteboard, with WMA Secretary Winston Thomas marking down each vote with paper ballots being read.
WMA Council watches the vote on one of three meet sites awarded this year.
Several hundred delegates are seated in front of me on the first-floor conference room of the Holiday Inn, hearing first from a Hungarian about Budapest’s bid for world indoor meet in late March 2014. He’s touting easy access of venues by walks and arena’s history of hosting major meets. He says farthest venue, cross country, is only 11 minutes away. Six Euros will buy a double-occupancy room in a four-star hotel, he says. Closes by saying his son turned 2 today. Presentation is lauded for lasting under 20 minutes. Valencia, Spain, is up next.
I missed some of presentation, but video was mainly a travelogue, with images of architecture and motorcycle racing in the eastern coastal city. In reply to a Rex Harvey question, rep says weight throw will be held outdoors. The Budapest weight throw will be held indoors. Voting begins at 9:47 a.m.
6 Responses
Hope Poland gets 2015.
There will be less of a turnout if it is in Perth. Colder too. 64-71 degrees in Perth this week with rain and breeze. Torun has warm weather:
http://www.accuweather.com/en-us/pl/masovian/torun/forecast.aspx 90 today.
But who knows what it will be like in 4 years.
Maybe less of a turnout because of distance but frankly 64-71 F sounds lovely to me. I ran the 8k x-c and 5k on the track in the heat in SAC. Maybe near 100 F is fine for those sprinting 100m but for middle distance, 10k, 20k road walks and a marathon – those are killer temps. But not everyone will be satisfied with whatever temps.
And just a guess – not being on the spot – but if Hungary got the indoors – my guess is that Poland will not get the 215 outdoors. It will be a toss-up between France and Australia. The WMA was last in Australia 14 years ago, Europe should not get a succession of meets – spread it around folks. However no one is asking me and I do not have a vote.
Not sure why the first two responses are discussing Perth when we are dealing with the Indoors.
Budapest in March, which is the rainy season and cold, and even if low tourist season – from various tourist blurb on the internet, will never have 6 Euro double Rooms in 4 Star hotels – there is a Zero missing. Best price for this October in 4 star is 70 Euros a night.
Access may be great, but if you are soaking wet, will be irrelevant, and even the famed Masters socialising will be curtailed by wet streets and everyone being confined to their own ‘cheap’ hotel – good choice – Round 1 to WMG, and they are not even in the frame!!!
Was it the two year old that did their compiling of data, hence less than 20 minutes and so less to query.
Mary,
At least it has been in Australia– twice, and other big meets have been there as well. http://www.mastershistory.org/history/resultsworld.html
From what I can tell it has never been in Eastern Europe the outdoors at least. But you are right Hungary hosting the Indoors will make it more difficult on Poland, but I hope that doesn’t have too much an affect. Outdoors and indoor champs should be treated independently of each other.
Matt B – you are correct – Eastern Europe has not hosted a WMA meet indoors nor outdoors. There have been 2 WMA meets in Australia the last one being 14 years ago. And as Maurice notes Budapest in April can be cold and rainy – fortunately it is primarily (but not exclusively) an indoor meet. That is the case in many places in the spring. The next indoor is in Finland in early April. It could be cold and rainy there.
I am sorry that Poland did not get an outdoor meet and hope they will bid again perhaps for 2018.
I am not a delegate so I do not have a vote so I am just expressing my opinion based upon both what I have read about the venues and my interest in the particular cities. Some cities are much more interesting to me than others. The ability of a LOC to organize a meet is key – as we have seen in SAC. It is difficult to tell from the presentations just how well a group can run a meet, a slick PR presentation is one thing, a well run meet is something else. Do you like all those Keep Out signs at Sac State? Do they make you feel welcome? And how about all the signs around Sacramento welcoming international athletes that you do not see.
Is there a website for Hungary?
Mary, – Sacramento, if I try to look at it from an visting athletes point of view; no, it probably wasn’t as welcoming as it could have been.
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