The Oceania Athletics Association (more commonly known as Oceania Athletics) is the governing body for athletics in Oceania. It is one of the six Area Associations of the world's athletics governing body World Athletics. Oceania Athletics has 23 members (including 3 associate members) and is headquartered in the Gold Coast.
From this Congress a Committee of four members (non-elected) was formed to set up a draft of rules for the new Association, whose name today is Oceania Athletics Association. These members were: Arthur Hodsdon (Australia) as Chairman, Clive Lee (Australia), James Dunn (Papua New Guinea) and an unnamed New Zealander. From that year onwards the Association has been elected by Member Federations. The name was changed to Oceania Athletics Association (OAA) in February 2007.[2]
Members and governance
Oceania Athletics' governance is split between the main bodies:[3]
The Congress, which is the general assembly of the Members and the supreme authority of the European Athletic Association;
The Council, with the Executive Board and its President; and
The Commissions.
Membership
Oceania Athletics now has 20 members and 3 associate members. Each member gets one vote at the Congress.[3]
A modification of Article 4.2 of World Athletics constitution set new rules limiting its membership as follows:
"The national governing body for Athletics in any Country or Territory shall
be eligible for Membership. Members that represented Territories on
31 December 2005 shall continue to be Members. No new Territories shall
be admitted to the Membership."[4]
As a consequence, the OAA made constitutional amendments[5] to its Article 2.5, introducing an associate membership to allow territories like New Caledonia, Niue, and Wallis and Futuna to participate officially "in OAA activities, including area and regional competitions".[6] This also applies for Tokelau, where the first athletics event ever took place recently.[7]
In 2008, New Caledonia became the first associate member,[2][8] Niue followed in 2009.[2]
Presidents
The current president of the association, Robin Sapong Eugenios (Northern Marianas) was
firstly elected in December 2019 at the OAA Special Congress.
In 2011, a new regional concept was introduced, and the three regional championships and the Oceania Championships were unified to the Oceania Regional (or Area) Championships, or simply again Oceania Championships. Two regions "East" and "West" were classified. Athletes from the two regions may compete together at the championships, but results will be separated for rankings purposes, and medals are awarded separately.