The EAP is heading towards 2024 with determination and new projects

Members were able to review the quality program evaluation criteria (QMP) which define the organizational quality standards, in the broad sense, of our meetings.
These quality criteria are also accompanied by our principles which, since the beginning of the 1990s, have guided us towards clean athletics. Over the years, the early requirements for “I am not doping” sworn declarations have evolved into a broader and more detailed concept that culminates in the Code of Conduct that every athlete or manager must agree to in order to participate.

For more than a year we have also included the safeguarding clauses that the Olympic committee asks to be integrated into all federations. With us, these two aspects are already present at the registration stage and are therefore highlighted.

But we also discussed other points and in particular the problem of valuing performance that WA imposed by creating categories of meetings (WACT) by authorizing them to distribute points according to the place and type of meeting. The sum of the performance points with those obtained by the ranking and determined by the type of meeting, means that certain athletes improve their ranking and can thus access qualifications for major championships. Or not .. !!

We believe that this distribution of points does not correspond to the value of the athlete but has to do with the possibility of one in relation to the other, of having the chance of being admitted to these meetings. Luck which is often caused by the influence that certain coaches, managers or federations can have on the organizer (who himself in certain cases is also a manager).
This means that for equal performance, its value is improved or degraded depending on a certain chance of being able to access these meetings. We see that some athletes systematically have more chances than others, regardless of their level of pure performance.
We therefore discussed a node that could consider the value of pure performance, as close to "absolute" reality as possible. This model, which we include in our concept of TrueAthletics, would allow us to have a ranking of value and not a ranking of chance. Obviously in the majority of cases, the current model is not totally arbitrary. The athletes who benefit from this “chance” deserve it. The problem is that others deserve it too, sometimes even more, and it is only given to them by chance, if at all.

We wish to propose a system which can erase these inequalities of treatment, and, on the contrary, promote excellence. Even for the public and non-experts this would provide a fairer unit of measurement. Instead of saying that this performance is worthless because the world record was not broken, they will be able to appreciate the fact that in these conditions this performance is close to, if not superior to, this performance or event a record.
This system would give a new reading key from which everyone would be a winner, from the athletes themselves, the organizers (all), the media, the sponsors. The measurements and chronometric or distance performance will obviously remain, but the value of this will be put in context.
Such were the interesting discussions on this subject.

The members of the circuit also discussed our internal statistics, highlighting the effort we make so that member athletes can participate in all our international meetings. This desire to favor the exchange of athletes from our own organizations remains one of the pillars of our own reason for being as a group.

We also debated one of our intrinsic aspects of the word "promotion". In addition to our traditional youth meeting (EAP Future) in Biella, in 2024 the Palafrugell meeting will specialize in the disciplines of the U18 categories. This is the future of athletics and we want to promote it, give it the importance it deserves and give them the joy of an international meeting, often the first for many of these young people. The EAP, with all our meetings, will therefore support the careers of these athletes.

An important modification will also concern all our meetings which will henceforth be obliged to systematically offer at least two U18 disciplines (2 for boys and 2 for girls) in each of their programs and to ensure the participation of our members.

We also discussed activating our other sectors, namely the EAP MASTERS circuit and the EAP RUNNING circuit.
We will soon have the pleasure of announcing new events and collaborations in this area.

The calendar of our meetings has been published and even if certain dates may still vary, it is already updated on our site.

Our circuit is appreciated. Many people circle the dates of our meetings in red. On the other hand, we have observed, over the last 4 years, the forced renunciation of certain athletes for the reasons that we indicated above.

We are therefore happy to be able to announce that in 2024, with also the return to business of two of our meetings (absent due to track repairs), will also be on the WACT calendar. We should therefore be able to count on 8 WACT meetings:  7 Challenger and 1 Bronze !

The format of our meetings allows greater accessibility than most others, we are confident of always being on the right track in terms of the service we provide to athletics. The Athletics we are proud of, as our slogan says!

Enjoy athletics: TrueAthletics !