Safe Athletics Track and Field Safety Guide for Competition now online

Safe Athletics is a new initiative developed by UK Athletics and Home Country Athletics Federations that seeks to raise standards of safety within athletics via best practice guidance and information made freely available to anyone involved in its delivery. Simply put, following the guidance contained within Safe Athletics resources will provide the best opportunity to avoid accidents and injuries and help ensure the safety of everyone involved in our great sport.

Track and Field embraces a wide range of disciplines from sprints to endurance, pole vault to long jump and hammer throw to steeplechase. As with any sport, each discipline carries some form of injury risk both for participants and also for those involved in, or affected by, the activity: coaches, officials, facility staff, media, spectators or the general public.

Safety is everyone’s responsibility and whether you are a facility owner, event organiser, official, coach, athlete or spectator; safety should always be the number one priority above all else. Often, this is easier said than done and in all endeavours there is a balance to be struck between risk and reward; and varying perceptions of risk means that this “balance” is sometimes viewed differently by different people. What is important is that safety decisions that are taken are not made in isolation and that there is consultation with others to ensure that any proposed actions reflect those of a “reasonable person”, i.e. the legal requirement.

This is the first edition of Safe Athletics which supersedes the previously published 2007 and 2017 Safe Codes of Practice for Track and Field Athletics.

There are four new Track & Field publications which fall under the Safe Athletics banner:

• Safe Athletics - Track & Field Safety Guide for Training (to be published Sept 2018)
• Safe Athletics - Track & Field Safety Guide for Competition (click here to open online)
• Safe Athletics - Track & Field Safety Guide for Facility Operators (to be published Sept 2018)
• Safe Athletics - Track & Field Safety Guide for Event Organisers (to be published Sept 2018)

Underpinning these new publications is a new online safety resource library providing templates and examples that can be used to support risk management processes.