Association of Track and Field Statisticians
Association of Track and Field Statisticians
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Association of Track and Field Statisticians

The Association of Track and Field Statisticians (ATFS) was founded in 1950. It is an international organization run by volunteers whose goal is to collect and disseminate the statistics of track and field athletics.

On 26 August 1950 at the Café de la Madeleine in the Rue de la Montagne, Brussels, Belgium, whilst attending the 1950 European Athletics Championships, the Association of Track and Field Statisticians was founded.

Two of the founding members, Roberto Quercetani and Donald Potts, had published in 1948 the first study of world all-time lists, A Handbook on Olympic Games Track and Field Athletics. Readers of this book were inspired to found an international association of track statisticians. One of the founding members, the Belgian journalist André Greuze, organised the first meeting on 26 August. One of the meeting's first acts was to elect Harold Abrahams as honorary president.

Note: two of the founders, Potts and Wünsche, were not actually present at the first meeting but are considered as founding members.

The association has published an annual yearbook since 1951. The first edition was published in Lugano, Switzerland, titled The 1951 A.T.F.S. International Athletic Annual. The editors were Fulvio Regli and Roberto Quercetani. It is an authoritative compilation of international athletics statistics and has been known as The International Athletics Annual and The ATFS Annual. It is currently published under the title of Athletics: The International Track and Field Annual and its editor is Peter Matthews.

Roberto Luigi Quercetani (known as RLQ to other track and field statisticians)was one of the eleven founding members of ATFS and was also its first president, remaining in the position for 18 years. He was also the editor of the first ATFS Annual. and is a renowned historian and writer on athletics

Quercetani was born in Florence, Italy on May 3, 1922. He was interested in both foreign languages and athletics from an early age, his study in both helped by reading foreign newspapers sent by friends from Switzerland. After World War II, he served as a technical interpreter for the allied forces in Italy. Now fluent in English, French and German, he started writing articles for the foreign sporting publications Leichathletik of Germany, World Sports of the UK, and Track and Field News of the United States.

In 1948, he wrote his first athletics statistical publication (with Don Potts).

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