In recent years, global sport organisations have undergone various reforms in an attempt to tarnish the bad reputation of international sport politics. Amongst them, World Athletics, the governing body for track-and-field, has conducted a governance structure reform and dropped its former name, International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), in 2019. However, concerns about sport organisations’ dealing with their past remain and continue to influence current decision-making processes. This also applies to World Athletics, for which questions over athletes involvement in decision-making, financial distribution schemes, national interests, presidential power, and gender equality, remain.
On Monday, October 11 at 16:00 (CET) an international discussion panel will address the past, present, and future of athletics’ governance on the occasion of the book launch of Power and Politics in World Athletics. The event will begin with a short presentation of the book, followed by a panel debate with:
| Emma Coburn | 3,000m Steeplechase World Champion & Vice-President of the Athletics Association |
| Sylvia Barlag | Council Member at World Athletics |
| Ian Ritchie | Associate Professor at Brock University, Canada |
| Lindsay Pieper | Associate Professor at Lynchburg University, USA |
| April Henning | Lecturer at the University of Stirling, UK |
The panel discussion is moderated by Jörg Krieger, Assistant Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark, and author of Power and Politics in World Athletics. A Critical History.
The event is organized in a hybrid format with participation possible on-site and virtually. The on-site event will take place at the Institute for Sport Science at Aarhus University (Main Lecture Hall, Dalgas Avenue 4, 8000 Aarhus C). The online participants can attend via Zoom. For both participation formats, registration is necessary and can be done here: https://events.au.dk/pastpresentfuture/signup. The number of on-site participants is limited and are awarded on first-come-first-serve basis. Online participants will receive a link to the event.
