Roberto Quercetani and ATFS

Plaque name: Roberto Quercetani and ATFS

Location: ASSI Giglio Rosso sports club, Viale Michelangiolo, 64, 50125 Firenze FI, Italy

Plaque awarded: 02/06/2023

Reason: Plaque Categories – ‘Legend’ (Quercetani) and ‘Culture’ (ATFS)

The doyen of athletics statisticians Roberto Luigi Quercetani (1922 - 2019), along with the Association of Track Field Statisticians (ATFS), of which he was a founder member in 1950, continues to be responsible for the accurate recording of the performances of our sport to the present day.

The renowned athletics historian Quercetani was ATFS’s first president from 1950 until 1968 and the general editor of the ATFS Annual each year to 1969.

For a sport so dependent on accurate timing and measurement, statistics had always been important and many an individual had laboured away keeping records of performances. But it was not until a group of enthusiasts gathered together on 26 August 1950 in the Café de la Madeleine in the Rue de la Montagne, Brussels to form the ATFS that their hobby was transformed into a well-coordinated service to the athletics community.

As Quercetani, put it: “From the very beginning, the ATFS has as its foremost aim that of popularising accurate and competent recording of track and field results on a world-wide basis.”