From IAAF to World Athletics, what has changed and what has remained the same during the federation’s history

The author of the first detailed history of one of the most powerful international sport organizations applauds World Athletics for its reforms though he believes there was no need to retire the IAAF name.

“I think the recent reform is definitely the biggest change this organization has made and I think it also needs to be commended for making that governance structure reform. I disagree with the fact that they had to change their name, so that’s really a move away from their past,” Dr. Jörg Krieger tells Around the Rings in an interview.

“I think they’re sort of denying their past, and it’s simply a marketing move to say ‘okay, there was this organization that was the IAAF, but we are World Athletics now; we’re something new.’”

Krieger’s recently released book, “Power and Politics in World Athletics: A Critical History”, offers a critical, academic analysis of the political and institutional history of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), which changed its name in 2019 to World Athletics.

Currently Assistant Professor for Sport and Social Science at the Department of Public Health at Aarhus University, Denmark, Krieger holds a PhD in Sport History from the German Sport University Cologne. He is Chair of the Research Network Sport & Society and a Co-Director of the International Network for Doping Research.

He explained the reasoning for his interest in World Athletics to ATR, stating, “I did my PhD on anti-doping history, but I came across the IAAF/World Athletics. This organization played an important role also in the formulation of anti-doping policies, and [I] quickly figured out that there wasn’t actually anything done historically from an academic point of view on the history of this organization.

“I’m really interested in power structures and the difficulties that certain disadvantaged individuals or groups of people have in getting a say within sport policy. That’s really what I was interested in, exploring how this power play played out within the IAAF.”

When asked if he had found a cycle of history repeating itself in regards to the IAAF as an organization, Krieger responded, “I wouldn’t say it’s history repeating itself, but you can definitely see tendencies of policies, organizational cultures, decision making processes, and attitudes that those leaders have that are running through the entire history.”

The interview then focused on one of the major points of interest of Krieger’s research, how the politics of the IAAF have affected disadvantaged groups over time.

Krieger was first asked about the historical treatment of smaller national athletics associations within the IAAF. He responded, “That is one of the themes that runs through the book, particularly starting in that post-WW2 period when there’s a lot of those smaller federations that you name being founded.”

“They are entering the IAAF at that point in time and interestingly, at that point, the IAAF changes its voting system so that the larger athletics federations get more votes than those smaller federations because those in charge saw that potentially they [smaller federations] would have the majority and out vote the larger federations.

“That’s openly communicated, well not openly communicated, but athletics leaders communicate that amongst themselves and this is why they introduce the change in the voting scheme. That I would consider a clear discrimination of those smaller federations.”

He then further explained how smaller national athletics associations would be taken advantage of by IAAF leaders, saying, “Interestingly, later, this voting system is changed by Primo Nebiolo [IAAF president from 1981-1999] because we get a development program that supports, or was supposed to support, those smaller nations in developing athletics.”

“It works the other way around because Nebiolo uses the development program to buy votes, or indirectly buy votes, for himself from those smaller nations and they then secure his presidency until he passes away in 1999.”

He concluded, “I do think that those smaller member federations have had it pretty difficult throughout the entire IAAF’s history.”

Krieger was asked about the historical background on the two most pressing issues facing World Athletics at the moment, gender equality and intersex athletes.

When asked about the IAAF’s role in the history of women’s athletics, he replied, “[It’s] something that I’m still working on with colleagues to focus more on this aspect of the history of women’s athletics.”

“Women struggled to get a foothold in athletics from the early 1920′s, when it was more about integrating. It was about, ‘okay, we don’t want a countermovement here or women doing something on their own, so what we will do is integrate them into our federation so we can control what is happening,’ and that is what happened over time.”

“Yes, it evolved. There were events added over various decades, but it was a struggle. Getting, for example, the women’s marathon concluded, that was not a move that came from inside the IAAF, but that was a move from the outside with Kathrine Switzer running the marathon and other movements in this regard.”

He continued, “You get from the 1980′s onwards a strong IAAF women’s commission that is led by a German lady, Ilse Bechthold, that really tried to change this also from within, but if you look at the obstacles that they had to overcome, and how they struggled to actually develop women’s athletics and to get those individual disciplines added to the program, then you must realize that it was not easy for women to get to that point where we are now.”

He concluded, “if you look at the governance level or the decision making level we’re obviously not on gender equality.”

Krieger then answered a question about if the debate around the participation of intersex athletes was more of a modern development, or if there was a historical background to this as well.

He answered, “That has also occurred over time, less with transgender athletes, but more with intersex athletes, as in the case of Caster Semenya. The IAAF was at the forefront of gender testing or gender policing from the late 1960′s onwards and they implemented various ways of testing women, and that led to the disqualification of various intersex athletes such as Ewa Kłobukowska.”

He added, “the IAAF clearly implemented this gender dichotomy from a very early time and essentially continues to do so with the case of Caster Semenya. It’s also not an occurrence that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. It’s certainly also the high profile nature of Caster Semenya being a very successful athlete, where the public’s attention has come to focus on more than in previous cases.”

With the idea of hardship and discrimination on the mind, Krieger was asked if World Athletics had become a more inclusive organization over time. He replied, “it has become more inclusive in a way that until the mid-1990′s there were no women on the IAAF council at all.”

“So, yes, it has become more inclusive if you only look at the numbers that’s for sure, but that’s only gender inclusion right? It’s not played out fully. I think, yes, it has become more inclusive.”

He added, “the governance reform is doing its bit here. We get the equal number of Vice Presidents from both genders by 2027 or 2029. There are moves towards this, but overall it’s certainly still very much a male dominated organization when we look on the leadership level and certainly in other aspects of inclusion. It’s not where it could be seen overall.”

As the interview reached its conclusion, Krieger was asked about the biggest or most shocking findings of his research. He stated, “Two things I suppose.”

“The first one is I found it almost scary how alike those individual presidents were. They were all very wrong in their own ways, as I tried to outline with the racial politics for example, but you can also talk about attitudes towards gender, or class.”

“They all had very, very similar attitudes and in almost every case. It was not a matter of democratic votes, who would bring this organization and the sport the most forward, but it was more a passing on of the relay baton to say ‘okay, now you are taking on and continuing with the policy the way I have left [it].’”

He elaborated, “linked to that is the amount of sexism, the amount of racism; doing political favors to particular parties. That these kinds of aspects are reappearing throughout the entire history. That’s something I found quite, I don’t know, horrible on one hand, but on the other hand quite fascinating.”

Krieger will be hosting an upcoming panel debate at Aarhus University, which is titled “Past, Present, and Future of Athletics’ Governance”. The panel will include Emma Coburn, 3,000m Steeplechase world champion and vice-president of the Athletics Association. The independent body was created to make sure elite track and field athletes are given a voice in the decision making process for the sport.

Krieger was asked if it is important, in his opinion, to include athlete’s voices in governance decisions. He stated, “yeah, absolutely I do think so. I do even want to go further than that and say they do not only have to be included, because they are now included in various ways, but they should also have a certain amount of decision making power or at least a veto right, or [something] similar.”

“The problem that I see there historically is that, we have that period in the 70′s and 80′s when athletes are beginning to protest, raise their voices. The IOC starts their athletes commission, which just had its 40th anniversary this week I think, but it’s sort of including the athletes almost as a policy stance, like ‘okay, we include them,’ but they don’t actually have a say.”

“That changed over time of course, with the IOC athletes commission chair now sitting on the Executive Board. We see a similar development also within World Athletics, where they (athletes) are also represented with one, and I think in the long term with two representatives, under the governance structure reform, but it’s still a minority right?”

He concluded, “They can bring in their opinions, but how much is that reflected if there sits 28 other people who have a majority and are non-athletes. I do think that athletes should have a stronger voice, in one way or another, and it will be very interesting to see how that turns out with this new body having been formed not too long ago.”

Besides Coburn, the panel featuring Krieger as moderator also includes World Athletics council member Sylvia Barlag and three academics: Ian Ritchie (Canada), Lindsay Peiper (USA), and April Henning (UK). It is scheduled to take place on October 11 at 16:00 CET. The panel can be viewed online and in person. Registration is available here and online viewers will be sent a link to watch the panel.

Homepage photo: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports