Last December, I reported that two bids were received for the 2020 outdoor masters nationals – one from Greensboro, North Carolina, and the other from the Niagara Association in upstate New York.

“However, because of questions about the facilities in Greensboro and the lack of detail in the Niagara Association bid (and the fact that site visits had not been conducted prior to the Annual Meeting in either Greensboro or Brockport), the [MTF] committee decided to postpone the decision,” said a report.

Now we know the verdict: Greenboro. Fidel B’s keen eye spotted the dates in a recent USATF email blast: “North Carolina A&T University, Greensboro, North Carolina, July 9-12, 2020.”

I wrote to Rex Harvey and Jerry Bookin-Weiner of the Masters T&F Committee to confirm, and Jerry graciously replied:

“What was decided in Columbus last year was to have the Executive Committee act once the site visits had been completed. In the end, the upstate NY folks did not submit a completed bid. In June, the Games Committee did a site visit to Greensboro and reported to the Executive Committee meeting in Spokane that everything looked good from a logistics of the meet perspective (which was the main issue of concern in Columbus).

“As a result, the [Executive Committee] voted to accept the Greensboro bid. The dates were essentially decided in Columbus, when a vote of the full MTF Committee came out strongly in favor of having the national meet before the Toronto WMA dates of July 20-August 1. So there will be a little over a week between the end of the outdoor nationals and the beginning of the WMA meet.”

I also learned that the dates for the NCCWMA regional meet next year in Toronto have changed. They had been scheduled for August 8-11, but now it will be July 18-21, one week after 2019 nationals in Ames, Iowa.

So mark your calendars.

The next couple years will be busy!

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