The goal of the World Athletics Calendar is to recognize elite athlete performances for World qualification and point purposes. Events that should be on the World Athletics calendar include but are not limited to:
World Athletics requires that all competition requests to the World Athletics Calendar be approved no later than 60-days prior to the competition. In order to clear this 60-day requirement we are encouraging all event organizers to submit their requests well in advance to allow enough time for full approval. Each event approval requires multiple levels of approval from both the member federation (USATF) and World Athletics before it can be listed.
USATF and World Athletics have collaborated to integrate the USATF Sanctions platform into the World Athletics Calendar platform. This means that approved event organizers now have the ability to submit a USATF sanction application and a World Athletics calendar request all in the same application. To ensure your application is reviewed in a timely manner, USATF would suggest submitting your application at least 30 days outside of the 60-day requirement from World Athletics. Overall, this would require event organizers to submit their application at least 90 days out from their event date.
In order to allow for this connection between the USATF Sanctions platform and the World Athletics Calendar platform, USATF created an additional role to differentiate elite events/competitions from all other USATF sanctioned events. Event organizers that have not already been approved can make this additional role request through their USATF membership/profile:
Once this request has been made and approved by the USATF team you will have access to the “World Athletics/USATF Sanction” application. For additional information on this application process, inquiries should be sent to the USATF High Performance Team at highperformance@usatf.org.
It is important to select the appropriate “Event Type” to ensure your competition is listed correctly on the World Athletics Calendar. Additional information such as a temporary survey or course certification may be required depending on the “Event Type” that is selected. Approval of this additional information may be required in order for the event to be approved by World Athletics and listed on the World Athletics Calendar. Proactively attaching any relevant temporary survey and/or course certification forms to your application may speed up the approval process for World Athletics. Also sending these forms to highperformance@usatf.org may assist if you are having issues attaching the form or if the form was not attached in your original application.
World Athletics has issued a new requirement, in which only performances that occur at events/competitions approved by the Member Federation (USATF) and/or World Athletics and listed on the World Athletics Calendar will count towards World qualification purposes. This means only performances at these competitions will provide athletes with world ranking points and will count towards standard qualifications for any World Athletics Championships. For USATF Championship qualification purposes, USATF will recognize performances that occur at events listed on either the World Athletics Calendar and/or are USATF sanctioned event.
Results for any competition listed on the World Athletics Calendar can be submitted directly through the World Athletics website at the following location: World Athletics Results Submission. If an event has also completed a USATF Sanction, a post-race report must also be completed through the USATF Sanctions Platform. Any inquiries into submitting a post-race report can be submitted to sanctions@usatf.org.
Any event that has been approved by both the member federation (USATF) and/or World Athletics will be listed on the World Athletics calendar. There are several features to sort and filter the competition calendar. Please be sure to use the appropriate filters when searching for a specific competition. It is important to remember that only approved events will appear on the World Athletics Calendar. If your event is not listed, your event is either pending approval or has not been submitted properly.
Any changes to an event that is already listed on the World Athletics Calendar should be requested through the USATF High Performance team through highperformance@usatf.org and the USATF Sanctions team through sanctions@usatf.org. This will ensure that events listed on both the USATF Sanctions calendar and World Athletics Calendar will be updated with any approved changes. These changes can be made less than 60 days prior, so long as the event has already been approved and listed on the World Athletics Calendar.
Meet Organizers who will host a World Athletics Continental Tour (WACT) meet in the United States must adhere to all WACT regulations and USATF sanction requirements. This guide is a brief overview of these requirements but is not exhaustive. For more information, meet organizers should read all requirements when completing a USATF Sanction and follow all requirements that are outlined by World Athletics on their Continental Tour webpage. The WACT is managed by World Athletics, with approvals by Member Federations (USATF) and Area Associations (NACAC). The requirements outlined here can be changed by World Athletics at their discretion. World Athletics now requires all meets to be on the World Athletics Calendar at least 60 days in advance of the competition to be recognized for qualifying and/or statistical purposes. Meet organizers should begin this process at least 90 days prior to their competition to ensure that all requirements can be completed by World Athletics deadlines. Prior to being approved by USATF to host a WACT meet in the United States, meet organizers must complete the following:
All WACT requirements can be found on the Continental Tour webpage. The following page is a brief overview of important WACT requirements for reference.