World Athletics Announces 4-Year Strategic Plan, Updated Olympic Qualifying Process

World Athletics on Wednesday announced the new four-year Strategic Plan to drive growth and updated Olympic qualifying process for Tokyo Olympics following three online meetings with its 214 Member Federations. The body said that its headquarters was reopened this week and took that opportunity to discuss the aforementioned things. "In three online meetings that spanned the globe today, World Athletics and its Member Federations discussed the direction athletics will take over the next four years and the short-term challenges and opportunities the sport has as the world begins to emerge from lockdown," World Athletics said in a statement.

The vision of the strategic plan is "to use the power and accessibility of athletics and our athletes to create a healthier and fitter world." The full strategic plan will be available by the end of June, the body said.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympic games have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The event will now be held from July 23 to August 8, 2021, while the Paralympics will take place from August 24 to September 5, 2021.

The Olympic qualification period was suspended from April 6 and World Athletics has confirmed that it will resume on December 1.

Also, qualification principles remain unchanged that is qualification through entry standards (which also remain unchanged) and then world rankings.

Athletes who have already met the entry standard since the start of the qualification period in 2019 remain qualified with other athletes to qualify within the extended qualification period.

World Athletics president Sebastian Coe, who chaired the meetings, said it was important to communicate regularly with the Member Federations in this unprecedented situation and to give direction for the future.

"Our head office may have been closed for 11 weeks but we have not been idle. We have used that time to continue to develop our strategy to grow athletics. A huge amount of work has been put into developing our four-year Strategic Plan, led by our CEO Jon Ridgeon and with input and involvement from all at HQ, our Executive Board, our Area Presidents, Commission Chairs, and Commissions," Ceo said in a statement.

"This is an exceptional body of work that brings together all the great things we do as a global sports body with a laser-sharp focus on doing it better and includes some innovative and creative ideas to drive growth in our sport. It is exactly the type of roadmap our sport needs to bring together all our stakeholders with a single vision, mission, and clear priorities," he added.

Both Coe and Ridgeon will be working from the headquarters in Monaco from next week.