Sanctions

Sanctions Coronavirus Response

These are challenging times! As we all navigate the momentous impact of COVID-19 on our daily lives and the lives of our loved ones, we are also faced with the reality that that it has impacted the sports world (and our sport) significantly. USATF wants to assure you that we take the ​health, safety, and well-being of our sanctioned event organizers and sanctioned event participants seriously. We are monitoring the situation related to the novel coronavirus COVID-19 very closely.
 
USATF is following guidance issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For those still hosting sanctioned events, USATF’s COVID-19 Working Group of medical and scientific professionals have established guidance for minimum standards you should strongly consider. Additionally, to protect the safety of your participants, you should follow any guidelines or restrictions issued by your local municipalities, which may be more stringent. Please see the following suggested safety precautions issued by the CDC for mass gathering events.  Please know, USATF supports you, our sanctioned event organizers, as you make difficult decisions about the future of your events based on guidance from local authorities and government agencies, but we strongly urge you to err on the side of participant safety.
 
USATF Cancellation Policy:

USATF is seeing an increased number of sanction applications and fewer requests for postponement or cancellation of events at this time. With that being the case, USATF will return to our standard cancellation policy on May 1st, 2021.

This cancellation policy is as follows: Cancellations will be permitted until the date of the sanctioned event. Any cancellations on the day of the event will only be honored if due to inclement weather or at USATF’s sole discretion. All cancellations are subject to a 10% administrative fee of the total sanction fees initially charged.

If you have any questions about our policy, or need any assistance with the cancellation/refund process, please contact sanctions@usatf.org.

We will continue to monitor developments and adjust where necessary, and we will work to keep you as informed as possible during these times. We’re committed to supporting our constituents, partners and the running community during this challenging time. Please email sanctions@usatf.org with any questions relating to your event sanction.

Individual Trial Event Sanctions:

USATF understands that state, local, and CDC guidelines can make in-person, mass-gathering, live events difficult to execute.  Accordingly, USATF can indeed sanction and insure an “individual trial” type of event, as long as the event satisfies several criteria to guarantee consistent conditions for all competitors. These type of “individual trial” events can best be defined as in-person events where event participants are competing at the same track or course on or about the same day, but NOT at the same time. The athletes are competing for the best possible marks, as opposed to against other participants running or walking the same course at the same time, or throwing / jumping at the same facility, thus limiting the exposure participants and officials have to others.  For running / walking events,  they must be timed, held on the exact same course, with proper safeguards in place throughout the course to ensure fair and accurate competitive results (e.g. cameras along the course, officials along the course, chip timing stations, etc.), and the event needs to take place over a limited time (1-2 days). The course should be surveyed on the day(s) of the event to ensure participant safety, and results need to be reported after the conclusion of the event. Similar procedures should be followed for “individual trial” field events, to ensure appropriate facility safeguards are in place and, as much as possible, continuity in officiating and competitive conditions.  Each athlete should sign up for a specific time to compete on the track or course to ensure a staggered start such that athletes do not come into contact with each other while on the track or course.  Additionally, the event organizer should implement procedures to ensure participants are not gathering either prior to or subsequent to their individual trial.   These individual trial events must follow all of the procedures outlined in USATF’s Event Hosting Guidance.  Specifically, all entrants to the facility / competition area must meet the minimum requirements of a completion of a symptom survey with answers that verify meeting the Low Risk criteria, as well as a temperature check.  To process a sanction for one of these “individual trial” events, please contact USATF Sanctions at sanctions@usatf.org.

Please also note that an individual trial sanction is meant to encourage athlete participation, and results from an individual trial sanction are not considered to be official marks.

Virtual Events:

For the purely virtual events, where participants are competing on a course that has not been surveyed by event organizers to ensure participant safety, USATF cannot sanction these events. Unfortunately, these type of virtual events do not meet the criteria of a USATF sanction and, therefore, will not be sanctioned by USATF.  If your sanctioned event transitions from an in-person event to a virtual event, please contact our office for a refund of your sanction fee.  In any event, please note that any previously issued sanctions and insurance certificates will be automatically void for those types of virtual events.
 
USATF appreciates your continued involvement in our sport.  Please feel free to contact our office should you have any questions or need assistance.