World Athletics has created a standalone Running & Mass Participation department, announced on 28 October, to concentrate its work across the global running ecosystem. The move was timed to come ahead of the TCS New York City Marathon and reflects how much of the sport’s growth, and its commercial and integrity workload, now sits outside the stadium.
Jakob Larsen will lead the department, working alongside Alessio Punzi. Larsen brings 25 years of experience as an executive in international sport and was involved in developing the World Half Marathon Championships in Copenhagen in 2014, the World Cross Country Championships in Aarhus in 2019 and the inaugural World Athletics Ultimate Championship in Budapest last month. The federation credits Punzi with building its presence and credibility in the running space over the past decade.
The remit is broad. It covers road running, the marathon, cross country, and mountain and trail events, along with the new RUN X World Treadmill Championship and the World Athletics Label Road Races programme. It also takes in regulation, technical and educational services, and the search for new partnerships in technology, data and the wider running industry. Recent milestones include the World Road Running Championships and Global Running Conference in Copenhagen, a standalone World Marathon Championships and the one-year-to-go mark for the 2027 World Mountain and Trail Running Championships in Cape Town.
Chief executive Jon Ridgeon said World Athletics’ research indicates that at least one billion people worldwide are runners “in some shape or form”, and described running as a tool for mental wellbeing, public health, social cohesion and the economic development of host cities. He set out the organisation’s role as governing running activities safely, staging top global championships, and acting as a catalyst for growth, both directly and by supporting others.
The release also put numbers on the road-running programme. More than 320 road races worldwide hold a World Athletics Label, and the linked integrity programme raises US$3 million a year for anti-doping testing, while the federation invests more than US$8 million a year in the Athletics Integrity Unit to protect road race integrity. Other work includes course measurement, official results, shoe-technology regulation, race emergency medicine and research on thermoregulation as climate change raises health risks for mass-participation events.