World Ranking Events allowed from August 1, 2020

World Ranking Events allowed from August 1, 2020

At its meeting on Thursday July 9th the IOF Council discussed the organisation of World Rankings Events (WRE). The possibility to organise WREs had been suspended from March 17, 2020 until July 31, 2020 due to restrictions on travel and activities due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Council determined activities were now starting up again in the majority of IOF Member countries and decided to allow the organisation of WREs again from August 1, 2020. The requirement is that the WRE can be organised in accordance with any restrictions on travel and participation set by the government or local health authorities. The IOF will now accept applications for WREs this fall.

The World Ranking System was frozen as of March 17, 2020. For example for Foot Orienteering this means that the currently displayed world rankings are calculated  from March 17, 2018, 24 months prior to the date of freezing the calculations. This freezing will remain in place until December 31, 2020. New WRE events organised after August 1, 2020 will be included in the rankings but the period for calculations will remain back to March 17, 2018 until the end of the year 2020. The reason for this is to assure that a consistent number of IOF major event competitions is included in the rankings period. As of January 1, 2021 the system will once again use a rolling period (of 33,5 months) until the pandemic period is no longer contained in the rankings period, i.e. as of January 1, 2023. At that point in time the rankings period will return to normal, i.e. the previous 24 months. The same method will be used for the other IOF disciplines  based upon their disciplines defined rankings period.

The Minutes of the Council meeting number 200 on July 9th have also been published and can be found on the Council page.