The board told the vote.
By force of will, superb preparation and a touch of nostalgia,
Doug “Shaggy” Smith of Ontario and his team pulled off an upset win Sunday in Perth. The WMA General Assembly voted 68-57 to award the 2020 WMA Stadia
Championships to Toronto, which hosted the first (WAVA)
world outdoor meet in 1975. Facebook [the source of these photos] carried the news early Sunday morning USA time. Runner-up Gothenburg was immediately hailed as the favorite for 2022. That Swedish track town hosted the second
WAVA world meet in 1977, so it’s déjà vu all over again. I’m assuming
Torun, Poland, won the 2019 indoor meet, since it was the only bidder. Daegu has 2017 indoors, and Malaga, Spain, has 2018 outdoors. Toronto returns the big meet to North America for the first time since Sacramento 2011. Counting Malaga, WMA worlds will have been in Europe 10 times and North America (including Puerto Rico) seven times. “I felt, going in, that we had a really strong bid,” Doug said. “We did the best job that we could, and I would have had no regrets if the delegates chose Gothenburg. When the vote came in, we were over the moon. What a party at my room. Now to get to work.”
Shaggy (far right) led Toronto partisans at the WMA General Assembly in Perth.
5 Responses
Great news!
Congratulations Toronto Team!
Super JOB BY the “Bid’s Committee”. “Congratulations”!
I was an Athl. Ont. timer at the 1st. WMA world T+f
Games, held in 1975, at Etob. On’s Centennial Stad. 2000 athletes , from 27 countries, 183 Officials.
Ed Whitlock. was a favorite in Both the M40 1500
and 800M races. It was Can. largest T+F mt. ever,up to 1975, even though it was run, on a single track.
The lousy news out of this general assembly is the removal of the 10,000m track race and the marathon from future outdoors championships. Replaced with 10K and 1/2 marathon road races. Neither event is remotely close to the original. So I guess I ran the last WMA marathon in Perth.
Twitter feed for 2020 meet:
https://twitter.com/wmaToronto2020
Instagram for 2020 is:
https://www.instagram.com/wmatoronto2020/
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