For Immediate Release
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Contact: Vicky Oddi, Communications Coordinator
USA Track & Field
(317) 713-4670; [email protected]


INDIANAPOLIS - USA Track & Field on Tuesday announced that it has revamped the process for selecting its team for the IAAF World Youth Athletics Championships. For the first time, the team will be selected based on performances at a Team Trials event - World Youth Track & Field Trials - which will be conducted less than two weeks before the 2009 IAAF World Youth Championships.   
 
Since the inception of the World Youth Championships in 1999, the U.S. team has been selected by a committee, which reviewed the performances of athletes who had competed in one of three national championship events - USA Youth, USA Junior, and USATF Junior Olympics - a full year prior to the World Championships. "Our goal is to send the best possible team to the World Championships, and having a selection meet just prior to the World Championships allows USATF to do this," said USATF Youth Division Chair Lionel Leach. "As is the case with our elite athletes and their teams, our youth athletes will be able to 'select themselves' based on how they perform at a qualifying meet."
 
The 2009 World Youth Track & Field Trials will be held on June 30 - July 1 in Ypsilanti, Michigan, in conjunction with the first two days of the USA Youth Outdoor Track & Field Championships. The event will serve as the qualifying event for the 8th IAAF World Youth Championships to be held July 8-12 in Bressanone, Italy.   For more information on the 2009 World Youth Track & Field Trials, including qualifying standards to enter the Trials and team selection criteria, please visit www.usatf.org/youth.  


About USA Track & Field
 
USA Track & Field (USATF) is the National Governing Body for track and field, long-distance running and race walking in the United States. USATF encompasses the world's oldest organized sports, some of the most-watched events of Olympic broadcasts, the #1 high school and junior high school participatory sport and more than 30 million adult runners in the United States.
 
For more information on USATF, visit www.usatf.org
 
# # #