FFA license and PPS, what a race director checks and keeps in France

For an adult runner without a license, the Pass Prévention Santé, or PPS, has replaced the medical certificate at road and trail races on the calendar of the French athletics federation, the FFA. This article covers what the current text says, the 2026-27 running event regulations published by the FFA, with the number of each article. The federation's text is the reference and it changes from one season to the next, so it is worth rereading the version published on athle.fr before each edition.

What an adult runner shows

Article II.A.3.2 makes participation conditional on showing the race director one of these two documents.

So it is up to the race director to decide in which form the PPS is accepted, which is set as early as the registration form. A PPS issued more than a year before the race date is no longer valid for it.

Minors

For a runner under 18, article II.A.3.1 accepts a license, the health questionnaire, or a certificate issued by the FFA on its online platform, pps.athle.fr.

Foreign licenses

Article II.A.3.3 leaves no doubt. Foreign licenses are not accepted, including those issued by a World Athletics member federation. A Belgian or Swiss runner licensed at home therefore shows a PPS, like an unlicensed runner.

What the race director keeps

Article II.A.3.4 requires the race director to be able to prove these checks were made for the statute of limitations on civil liability for bodily injury, which is ten years. The simplest way is to keep, for each runner, the type of document shown, its number and its date, attached to the registration.

What the text does not specify

The regulations do not say how the check is done technically. The specifications the FFA publishes for online registration and timing providers include a license and PPS verification service, open to providers holding the federation's label.

With Chrono Corner registration, the runner enters their license or PPS number and its date, then ticks a declaration. They are never asked for the health questionnaire. Checking the document itself remains the race director's job, for example at bib pickup.

After the race, the results

Article II.A.2 asks race directors listed on Calorg to provide, or have provided, the results as a spreadsheet, preferably e-Logica or otherwise Excel, but not as a PDF, with full dates of birth. The text gives resultats.cnr@athle.fr as the address to send them to. For a labeled race, article II.B.4.3 sets a 48 hour deadline to post the results in the e-Logica format.

For a race held under FFA sanction, article III.B.6 lists what posted results include, notably the place, last and first name, age group, nationality, club or town, performances, category ranking, license number, sex and bib number.

Race labels and chips

The 2025-2026 running label rules go further for labeled races. On road and trail, the Gold and Silver labels require transponders run by a provider holding the FFA label. On a Bronze trail, transponders are mandatory. On a Bronze road race and in cross country, they are recommended. The texts cited here do not require chips for a race without a label. The chip timing process is explained in the guide how to time a running race or trail.

Sources

Texts read on October 22, 2026 from the FFA running regulations page, the 2026-27 running event regulations and the 2025-2026 running label rules, all in French. This article summarizes those texts and does not replace them.