Email Gerard Stenger 13 December: Many of our friends had called to know what was the first step of the IAU !
Who are the founders members and when they decided to go, objective and aims?
The answer could be found in an short note reported by Dan Brannen in “Ultrarunning 1984”.
After the first Spartathlon 1983, Edgar Pattermann decided to organise the Austrian Danau race. April 20 to 23rd, we had run more 300km along the Danau in a 3 stages race finishing at Wien.
After the race, runners had a marvellous diner-meeting, and discussed for the first time the opportunity to have a runner international association.
{i}{B}International Association of Ultrarunners (IAU) Formed{eb}
The Austrian Danube race was the site of the inaugural meeting of the International Association of Ultrarunners. Founding members are:
Edgar Patterman (Austria),
Malcolm Campbell/Bruce Slade (England),
Dan Brannen (U.S.),
Gérard Stenger/Jacques de Roquefeuil/ (France),
Werner Sontag (West Germany).
Official statistician is Andy Milroy of England.
At present U.S. representatives (Northeast, southeast, Northwest, Southwest, Central, Mountain) and a U.S. officers will be announced in the next issue of Ultrarunning.
The primilary goals of the association are:
To foster communication and cooperation between ultrarunners of all countries, regardless of ethnic or national considerations;
to establish international guidelines for conduct of events and for accurately measuring standard-distance courses;
to list standard distance and time blocks for official world records and deep lists;
To maintain official world and national records and deep lists for these distances and time blocks
To furnish an international calendar of bona-fide events;
To maintain and circulate a list of problem events, unscrupulus race directors, and dishonest competitors;
Wherever possible to work in cooperation with the IAAF and its various national governing bodies (in the U.S., TAC), but to maintain different standards whenever necessary for universal fairness. It is expected that the IAU will have final say as to the status of all claimed world and national records for all distances above the marathon. An IAU charter is being drawn up and should be ready by the fall of 1984.
Dan Brannen.
Ultrarunning 1984 (page 5)
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