I've read recent articles that say there are three U.S. cities possibly vying to host the World Cross Country Championships in 2010. If this is true and it's between Spokane, Chicago, and Boulder, which of these three cities will put on the best race? I believe Boulder can, but will the altitude be a factor with the IAAF? Should it matter more than security in Ahman, Jordan?
PKM wrote:
I've read recent articles that say there are three U.S. cities possibly vying to host the World Cross Country Championships in 2010. If this is true and it's between Spokane, Chicago, and Boulder, which of these three cities will put on the best race? I believe Boulder can, but will the altitude be a factor with the IAAF? Should it matter more than security in Ahman, Jordan?
I don't think they should be concerned about altitude. If they have the Olympics and most world champs in conditions no one trains in (extreme heat), they can have the World XC Champs in conditions nearly every top distance runner trains in, altitude.
Bob Kennedy is the only athlete I can think of off the top of my head who had world success and didn't train at altitude.
PKM wrote:
If this is true and it's between Spokane, Chicago, and Boulder, which of these three cities will put on the best race? I believe Boulder can
Why? What would a flyover hippie backwater offer that Chicago or even Spokane couldn't? The running communities of Spokane and Chicago are equivalent to Boulder's, so it's not like the meet would suffer for support and spectators if it were held at either. Chicago should get the nod because it's an actual world class metropolitan area, with more than enough accommodations for lodging, meals and airlines for both spectators and participants.
Why wouldn't the CO people want to have it in Denver instead of Boulder? What's the fascination with holding it in tiny Boulder? Wouldn't the running community in Boulder venture outside of Boulder to go to Denver to support the race? Denver as a venue would better accommodate the athletes, officials and spectators.
It's all about money, not altitude or course or spectators.
If a place can provide $ to the IAAF in terms of prizes, lavish hotels/gifts for members, then that's where the championships gets awarded. They don't care about anything else.
They'd hold it on the moon if someone paid for the shuttle to get them there.
how many do they have to fly in, house at a 5 star hotel, provide rental cars, gourmet food, etc. for 7 days, is 1000 a good estimate ?
"wejo" wrote:
"Bob Kennedy is the only athlete I can think of off the top of my head who had world success and didn't train at altitude."
Once upon a time there were these characters named Rodgers (Massachusetts), Virgin (Illinois), and Jennings (N.H./Oregon) who did prety well at World XC.
wejo wrote:
Bob Kennedy is the only athlete I can think of off the top of my head who had world success and didn't train at altitude.
I may be wrong but didn't Kennedy spend a good deal of time training with the Kenyans in Kenya at altitude?
Siting is a constant problem with our sport in the US.
The seat of the sport is in Indianapolis.
National cross-country championships are in Terre Haute.
Now Spokane is being suggested?!
No disrespect to these fine places, but I would not travel to any of these places to be a spectator, and I'm a track nut, and I can't imagine international visitors doing it either, especially them. What in the world is there to offer a European visitor in those cities. I've been to them all, and Barcelona or Edinburgh they're not.
What cross country needs, and track too, is to build off of a already built-in fan base so that the stands are full, so maybe the interest of the press and general public will rekindled.
Boulder has a very knowledgeable fan base and would likely line a course and pack a stadium. Same for Eugene. Last I checked, Chicago is a baseball, basketball, hockey and football town.
I would like to know who makes thse siting decisions to send them a letter. I would imagine a local economic impact argument might be made, but seriously, how much impact is going to be made in Spokan when only a 100 die hard international guests and the competitors show up?
Personally, I'd love to see the XC Champs come here to Los Angeles. The weather is great, and there's lots to do while you're here the championships.
Nice coincidence that this thread got started today. Sort of by mistake last night, I actually found this clip of the 1984 World X-C in New Jersey. In hindsight, that manmade hill is pretty silly
Excellent Point wrote:
Sort of by mistake last night, I actually found this clip of the 1984 World X-C in New Jersey. In hindsight, that manmade hill is pretty silly
And yet Nike uses a similar idea for their HS championships, the NTN meet.
(BTW, I attended that 84 worlds at the Meadowlands)
Excellent Point wrote:
Sort of by mistake last night, I actually found this clip of the 1984 World X-C in New Jersey. In hindsight, that manmade hill is pretty silly
Consider a Career in Medicine wrote:
And yet Nike uses a similar idea for their HS championships, the NTN meet.
Which is still pretty silly.
DUELIST wrote:
Siting is a constant problem with our sport in the US.
The seat of the sport is in Indianapolis.
National cross-country championships are in Terre Haute.
Now Spokane is being suggested?!
No disrespect to these fine places, but I would not travel to any of these places to be a spectator, and I'm a track nut, and I can't imagine international visitors doing it either, especially them. What in the world is there to offer a European visitor in those cities. I've been to them all, and Barcelona or Edinburgh they're not.
What cross country needs, and track too, is to build off of a already built-in fan base so that the stands are full, so maybe the interest of the press and general public will rekindled.
Boulder has a very knowledgeable fan base and would likely line a course and pack a stadium. Same for Eugene. Last I checked, Chicago is a baseball, basketball, hockey and football town.
I would like to know who makes thse siting decisions to send them a letter. I would imagine a local economic impact argument might be made, but seriously, how much impact is going to be made in Spokan when only a 100 die hard international guests and the competitors show up?
What makes you think the Spokane fan base isn't as large and as knowledgeable as Boulder's? Last I checked, Bloomsday still out-draws Bolder Boulder. You really think that Boulder has more to offer European visitors than Spokane does? Even though it's like half the size of Spokane? Boulder's no Edinburgh or Barcelona, either. Shit, it isn't even Liverpool or Munich. Boulder is a jogger destination. As for Chicago, last I checked Chicago's marathon still out-draws every marathon in the state of Colorado combined. Football and baseball won't be in-season when World XC would be held, and the hockey and basketball teams in Chicago aren't going to be sucking fans away from spectating at World XC. Illinois (and neighboring states) has a great tradition of XC, I bet with all the high school athletes who would show up for the meet the attendance would dwarf the inflated claims Boulder put out last year when they hosted nationals. Chicago would even out-draw Eugene.
1500meterguy wrote:
wejo wrote:Bob Kennedy is the only athlete I can think of off the top of my head who had world success and didn't train at altitude.
I may be wrong but didn't Kennedy spend a good deal of time training with the Kenyans in Kenya at altitude?
You are wrong. Kennedy never did any significant altitude training. He trained with Kenyans in London.
Wejo seems right, talking about modern era athletes.
Boulder = Hype Gone Wild wrote:
You really think that Boulder has more to offer European visitors than Spokane does? Even though it's like half the size of Spokane? Boulder's no Edinburgh or Barcelona, either. Shit, it isn't even Liverpool or Munich. Boulder is a jogger destination.
At least Boulder is extremely close to Denver, a major American city, with world class hotels and a reasonable destination for people to visit.
Spokane is next to...uh, Coeur D'Alene? Moses Lake?
if chicago didn't outdraw spokane or boulder or even any other city in the USA besides LA/NY that would be pretty embarassing. when you have a metro area of close to 10 million people you better get more people than boulder (280,000) or spokane (625,000) otherwise you are dealing with pathetic organization/marketing or just a place where no one cares. boulder is full of joggers but those joggers showed up to nationals last year. seeing that chicago is annually one of the fattest cities in the nation, which would imply a lack of joggers or anyone who exercises in general, makes me think they might have a tougher time selling the event than a place that actually has an active population no matter how big or small.
I estimate $3000 for air, 500 day, 7 days, 1000 do nothings = $6.5 million for the IAAF Family. IAAF meet workers, managers, essential people, WADA, not included. There goes the prize money pot ;-(
That is pretty poor commentary of Chicago. Chicago has a lot of potential to hold a major XC event, although I don't know what location would be a good host inside the city. There are many suburban areas that would have better courses to run the race on.
Chicago might not be as active as Boulder or other places, but the Chicago Marathon still gets 45,000 participants (well over half from the Chicago area) and the Shamrock Shuffle is one of the largest non-marathon road races in the country. Plus, the high school distance scene is incredible (as good as anywhere in the country, if not the best). If marketed properly, which probably wouldn't happen of course, Chicago could easily draw huge crowds similar to NYC. Plus, Milwaukee and Madison are two hours away or less and Indianapolis is less than four hours away, meaning fans of the sport from each area would be more than willing to travel to Chicago to watch a great race assuming there are other events to draw them in as well (i.e. Olympic Trials set-up).
I'm all for having World's here in Boulder.
I've never been to Spokane, so I can't speak to their city/venue.
Chicago however, I do like. I ran the Loyola Waterfront XC meet every year in college. It's in Lincoln Park I believe, on the water. There's one hill that we ran like 4 times over 8k. They'd have to eliminate a concrete crossing, but it is a nice venue with the skyscrapers of Chicago & the beauty of Lake Michigan as a backdrop.
Now, what to do about the snow in March...
It's 30 minutes by car from Denver to Boulder, and 30 minutes from the airport to Denver. That's right, roughly an hour (depending on traffic) between the airport and Boulder. That's not "extremely close." Spokane-Coeur D'Alene may not beat that as a metro area, but Chicago does by a long way. Most people who would be traveling to run, officiate, or spectate at WXC wouldn't prefer to stay in Denver, 30 minutes away from the venue in Boulder, when they could go into Chicago and be 10-15 minutes away from the race venue. Boulder just lacks convenient infrastructure in comparison with Chicago and even compared to Spokane. If they were bidding to hold the meet in Denver then I'd agree with you that CO would have a better set-up than the WA bidders would. Having it in Boulder just doesn't make a lot of sense when you start considering the realities compared with what Chicago or even Spokane could offer.
Plus there's the part where the IAAF says they want to encourage more European participation at WXC. Holding the meet at altitude, which slants the venue in favor of the East Africans, would dissuade most European federations from sending teams and go against that stated intention.
I just can't see it in Chicago proper, suburban forest preserves sure, but just no hills in the city. Kind of funny to think of running XC and going over that hill (cricket hill?) 4 times.