Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 148, Jan 2022 Jan 2022 | Page 56

TRACK & FIELD

A Bumper

2022 Awaits

If you are an athletics fan , you are licking your lips for the jampacked calendar of top flight athletics events in 2022 … provided COVID does not once again rear its ugly head . If the pandemic stays in its box this year , then there will not be a month of the year that does not have something for the athletics lover in South Africa . Manfred Seidler looks into an admittedly blurred crystal ball and looks what may happen in 2022 .
World Class Venue for World Champs

Let ’ s be frank , the 2022 athletics year has already taken a few knocks , with COVID continuing to take its toll on events . Both the World Cross Country Championships , scheduled for 19 February , and the World Half Marathon Championships , scheduled for 27 March , have already been postponed . The World Half has moved to 13 November in Yangxhou , China , and the World Cross Country has been moved to 2023 , to take place in Bathurst , Australia on 18 February . Athletics South Africa ( ASA ) is also still waiting to hear if the 2022 African Cross Country Championships will go ahead .

The Hayward Field Stadium at the University of Oregon in Eugene , which will host the World Championships in July , already hosted the US Olympic Trials in 2021 , and those who watched that meet can attest to the state-of-the-art nature of the stadium . In fact , to merely call Hayward Field a ‘ stadium ’ does not do it justice …
It was meticulously crafted to embody the characteristics of a theatre , to ensure the most engaging possible fan experience , which is partly why it came at a cost of $ 200 million . The refurbished stadium also features an indoor practice area with a six-lane , 140-metre straight , and practice space devoted to long jump , triple jump , high jump , throws and pole vault . There are also modern locker rooms , facilities for sports medicine , a hydrotherapy room , treatment and rehab areas , a weight room , and a theatre-style room for team meetings . There ’ s even a barbershop !
Take a look at some of the features of the state-of-the-art Hayward Field athletics stadium .
While the above is not the best of news , there is still much excitement around the months of June , July and August , when the African Championships , World Athletics Championships , Commonwealth Games as well as the World Under-20 Championships will all be held . This does create a headache , of sorts , for the ASA selectors , as already covered in the previous edition of Modern Athlete ( read it here ), but for those of us who have been starved of action for the past 20-plus months , this busy period is something to look forward to !
The Africa Championships are in Mauritius from 8 to 12 June , then we move to the World Athletics
Championships , which will be held in the new Hayward Field Stadium in Eugene , Oregon in the USA from 15 to 24 July . The Commonwealth Games athletics schedule in Birmingham , UK runs from 2 to 8 August , with the World Under-20
Championships in Cali , Columbia from 1 to 6 August . And in between all of this will be the exciting World Athletics Diamond Leagues Series , running from May to September , at venues all over the world .
Images : Reg Caldecott , Roger Sedres / ImageSA & courtesy YouTube
56 ISSUE 148 JANUARY 2021 | www . modernathlete . co . za