Indoor track & field events could have a new name but not everyone is on board with it.
World Athletics, the international governing body of the sport, recently proposed a change that would term any events hosted on 200M track facilities (mainly found indoors) as “short track.”
In a recent press release, the World Athletics Council said it is supporting the concept of “short track” competition to allow more flexibility in the setting of 200M tracks, which may, in the future, be constructed outdoors or in temporary city locations, rather than in a traditional indoor arena. This, World Athletics notes, would mean that performances set on outdoor or temporary 200M tracks could be recognized as official results for the purpose of records and rankings.
The indoor world championships will still exist as will other indoor meets, but official short track meets held in any location could be used as qualifying events for major indoor championships, World Athletics said.
Track & field purists, however, absolutely hate the new name, and were very quick to make their feelings known on social media.
“Makes absolutely no sense,” noted Lance-Jo Muir in a Twitter post. The only short races run indoors are the 60m and 60mh. And they do hep[tathlon] for men and [pentathlon for] women. Everything else is the same. Smh.”
Another Twitter cited confusion with a completely separate sport, posting, “The only thing "short track" sounds good with is speed skating. WA getting ridiculous these days.”
Yet another user posted: “This is ugly.”
World Athletics says the rebrand will “help to distinguish 400m tracks from 200m tracks.”
In light of the pushback, World Athletics stated, “With the advent of modern athletics and the development of hybrid competitive venues- city squares, shopping malls, train stations- it is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain the separation between outdoor and indoor athletics.”
Even superstar athlete Michael Johnson has weighed in, noting, “Problem with this is the sport has a few glaring problems needing to be fixed but WA decides to ignore those (hard problems) and fix this (easy problem). It’s become a WA pattern, and the comments show people are tired of it.”
Well, love it or hate it, World Athletics’ word will be law, and with that comes some new rules. The governing body has set forth a new list for world records that takes short track into account; it is as follows:
Proposed list of officially recognized events for world record purposes (not including road).
sh = short track
Running | 50m | Field events | High jump |
| 60m |
| Pole vault |
| 100m |
| Long jump |
| 200m |
| Triple jump |
| 200m sh |
| Shot put |
| 400m |
| Discus |
| 400m sh |
| Hammer |
| 800m |
| Javelin |
| 800m sh | Combined events | Pentathlon sh |
| 1000m |
| Heptathlon sh |
| 1000m sh |
| Heptathlon |
| 1500m |
| Decathlon |
| 1500m sh | Race walking | 3000m sh |
| 1 Mile |
| 5000m sh |
| 1 Mile sh |
| 10,000m |
| 2000m |
| 20,000m |
| 3000m |
| 35,000m |
| 3000m sh |
| 50,000m |
| 5000m | Relays | 4x100m |
| 5000m sh |
| 4x200m |
| 10,000m |
| 4x200m sh |
| 1 hour |
| 4x400m |
| 3000m SC |
| 4x400m sh |
Hurdles | 50m hurdles |
| 4x400m mixed |
| 60m hurdles |
| 4x400m mixed sh |
| 100m hurdles |
| 4x800m |
| 110m hurdles |
| 4x800m sh |
| 400m hurdles |
| 4x1500m |
|
|
| Distance medley |
According to ESPN, the proposal has the unanimous backing of World Athletics' decision-making council and is set to be approved at a meeting in Budapest, Hungary, in August on the sidelines of the outdoor world championships, the world body said. The new rules would come into effect on Nov. 1.
More information is available on the World Athletics website.
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