Before the topic gets old and moldy, let’s tie up some loose ends on the WMA General Assembly. These national masters delegates met from around 9 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. July 10, 2003, at the Ritz Carlton Carolina (with a break for lunch). Bottom line: A semblance of democracy remains in World Masters Athletics. Like FDR being blocked from packing the Supreme Court, Emperor Torsten Carlius was kept from pushing through his effort to banish term limits — which potentially could have made him Emperor for Life.

As USATF’s Bob Fine wrote me: “You must follow the rules.” This was in reference to the exclusion of at least four countries from voting despite their large number of delegates (based on athlete numbers in previous world masters championships).
Fine said Germany, France, Spain and Portugal had to sit out votes because “Under Section 4 (n) of the WMA Constitution each affiliate must submit a list of their delegates 30 days before the Assembly meeting. Spain, France, Germany & Portugal did not.”
However, a European source told me: “Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Mexico were (excluded from voting.)”
OK. Whatever.
Fine, a lawyer who helped craft the original WAVA Constitution, further stated:
Torsten and the Council were advised before the meeting that the protest would stand. Because of that, separate (seating) sections A and C were set up. I requested a ruling from the parliamentarian (Monty Hacker) on the point that the Constitution could not be modified at this session. He so ruled. The result was that these countries were not permitted to vote. There was no objection to their having a voice in the deliberations. It probably did not make any difference as the key vote on the elimination of term restrictions would have been defeated even if all of those countries voted to eliminate it.
In the end, says another source, “the WMA General Assembly had 52 voting delegates, 43 nonvoting delegates and 13 council members voting. The no-unlimited term limits would have lost whatever the voter pool was as it was 39 against and only 20 for and two abstentions. The 39 out of 108 would have killed the two-thirds majority vote.”
After the USA delegation tried to exclude votes from European countries (partly in at attempt to help New York City win the 2004 World Masters Indoor Championships), the vote went for Sindelfingen, Germany, anyway. The vote was 44 in favor of Sindelfingen, 11 against, 8 no opinion.
By the way, it was Ralph Romain of Trinidad and Tobago who asked for clarification on the matter of excluding countries from voting. The next day, he went out and won the M70 400 meter final in a world age-group record 1:01.01. Must be nice.
A European source writes that afterward European Masters Association Prez Dieter Massin of Germany shook hands with USATF Chairman George Mathews, who congratulated Massin.
Besides the obvious reasons of proximity, why did the Europe-dominated WMA back the WMA Council choice of Germany to host the inaugural world indoor meet? Possibly under the impression that USA visa restrictions prevented some athletes from competing at the Puerto Rico meet.
One source writes:
Yesterday a European told Herbert Jaehtzen (an M50 1500 runner at Carolina): “Well, actually I’m for NYC. But now I’ve seen the problems for many nations and competitors to come here into PUR. Now I’m going to vote for
Sindelfingen. Masters championships shall be open for every nation and not only the elected nations the US-government wants to invite.”
Now where in the heck did THAT come from? All I know about visa problems is my pure speculation that Cuba couldn’t send some former Olympians, including 800 star Ana Fidelia Quirot. Despite many attempts to clear up this matter, I still don’t know why Quirot and a few others never made it to Carolina.
Anyway, said my source: Life goes on: Let’s now have a great party and event next March in Germany, let’s have “Championships of friendships” like Massin told in his presentation of Sindelfingen (and probably in NYC 2006) at the
Ritz Carlton.”
OK. Party on, dudes!