david ramiro
Madrid, March 8. The World Athletics Council, the highest international athletics body, is moving towards equality with a representation and inclusion policy that encourages women to have a growing role with the objective, in the medium term , to achieve real equality between the sexes.
On March 8, International Women’s Day, World Athletics has released a series of new commitments which include the expansion of the Ukraine Solidarity Fund, to help athletes affected by the invasion of Russia who has been going on for over a year. , as well as various actions aimed at improving gender equality in this sport and reducing the gap between men and women.
With the #WeGrowAthletics campaign, which this year reaches its third edition, World Athletics intends to continue making “substantial progress in eliminating gender bias in athletics”.
“I am immensely proud that World Athletics is leading the way towards gender equality in sport. It was an important part of the reforms we introduced in 2016 and I now believe that in today’s world , it is not enough to provide equal opportunities, but we must ensure fairness,” said World Athletics Chairman Sebastian Coe of Great Britain.
“To achieve true equity in our sport, it is important that we provide our athletes and administrators with the tools they need to develop their careers at all levels of athletics. We already set quotas for female representation within of our governing bodies and clubs and we also provide more flexible learning and development opportunities that are better suited to women’s commitments,” she said.
Research by consultancy Nielsen shows that 74% of supporters believe World Athletics is genuinely committed to upholding equality. “We are delighted to lead initiatives in favor of gender equality and to set an example for other international federations,” underlined Coe.
To continue to advance in gender equality, the various national federations must play an active role in helping to achieve the objectives set by the international organization, which wants to lead this process based on three pillars.
He first wants to bring the number of women on the World Athletics Council to a minimum of 10, including at least one vice-president. To this end, in the Council elections to be held in August 2023, women will represent 40%.
Second, build a process to increase female representation in the four World Athletics Commissions to 50% for the period 2023-2027. The goal is to provide more opportunities for aspiring female directors to run for the board in 2027.
The third point is to increase the number of female coaches in view of the Tokyo 2025 World Athletics Championships, by encouraging federations to provide more training in countries where they are under-represented at the technical level. “To help us achieve this, the World Athletics Task Force on Gender Leadership is working on a program for International Olympic Committee coaches so that they can already be selected to their national teams for the Paris 2024 Games.”
In the midst of the digital era, World Athletics intends to leverage technology to develop more online courses and exams with the aim of reaching 40% female representation in these activities.
The next big event will be the World Cups in Budapest in August, when a gender leadership conference will be held to promote the role of women in athletics.
AID FUND FOR UKRAINE
Last year, thanks to the creation of the Solidarity Fund with Ukraine, more than a hundred Ukrainian athletes, as well as their immediate families and entourage, benefited from it in order to be able to train and participate in the Championships of the world and of Europe in athletics.
Stephanie Hightower, chair of the World Athletics Gender Leadership Task Force, says she is “very proud of the work they have done since their inception in 2017”.
“Since our humble beginnings, we have grown in scale and are making a significant impact on our sport. I believe we are paving the way for other sports organizations to achieve gender equality and ensure sustainable leadership pathways for women,” she said.
One of the objectives of World Athletics, with all these projects, is to continue to inspire girls to have a happy childhood and in the future to be able to follow in the footsteps of their role models as a sporting example for society because “sport it is friendship, leadership, honesty and solidarity.” EFE
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