Well...How did we do??? Did the U.S. and Eugene do a good job hosting junior worlds?

Did o.k., but no WC should be held in Eug/Pdx bc it's too small for 9 days. Seattle or L.A. are big enough WC cities.

Poor people from developing countries din't have the money to rent an car and drive to San Francisco like the German and Chinese teams did on their off days.

Thus the paid attendance at Hayward was half of the 51k mentioned since 1/2 the people in the stands were stuck in town and sat with free IAAF credentials around their necks.

Hayward field is ideal for this kind of championship. Way better than the huge Barcelona olympic stadium which even with 10.000 people in the stands looked empty two years ago.

However, I don't see Hayward field host the real World championships in a few years. Even with adding bleachers the capacity of that facility is far below what is needed. Look at Glasgow this week and put a track in Autzen stadium for a summer.

Curious about Eugene wrote:

The six-day meet attracted 51,532 fans

It's so they can lie like this that they drag the thing out 6 days.

Tickets were sold for either all 6 days or the last 3 days. Not just one day. They can't sell more than 11,000 or so total tickets because all of them will show up for the last 3 days.

They probably had 6,000 people show up for the first three days, and the same 6,000 people plus 5000 more people showed up for the last 3. The first 6000 were probably mainly parents and relatives of the athletes, and the other 5000 were sensible people who had paid 40 bucks to see DL Eugene and weren't about to shell out 70 to 180 to see a lower-caliber event.

Ok except for the missing Ethiopians.

Eugene did fine, but what I believe both they (the organizing committee) and IAAF realized is that Eugene is far too small and hard to get to in order to host a World Championship (not junior champs). What Vin and his Nike money should do is buy the Portland Meadows raceway where NXN is held (it's for sale), bulldoze the stadium and surrounding owned buildings and build a world-class track and field facility. This can be accomplished by 2019. Portland is big enough and will have another 500,000+ people living there by 2019 (it's projected to grow by 1M by 2025). It keeps it close to TrackTown, so Vin can still keep his stamp on it and do a great job, but it has the international resources he needs that Eugene doesn't offer.

Oh, and Vin and his staff did a great job this past week. There are certain things they could have done better, but overall it was a great showing.

The US did a great job, however Nike, Vin and UO did a horrible job.

Why did you think they did a horrible job? Examples?

I like the Portland idea in the above thread.

Really interesting idea - hope there's a way to turn it into a reality.

What percentage of attendees were T&F fans not related or close friends with a competing athlete or someone who lived more than 2 hours drive? 1%? 2? Jr Worlds is just not the kind of competition that most fan consider attending. No knock on Eugene or anyone else.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Tickets were sold for either all 6 days or the last 3 days. Not just one day.

Nope. You could purchase single day tickets.

While I was wondering how accommodations would be for the athletes and coaches (in campus housing), it seemed like the athletes enjoyed it (whenever I would walk across campus I'd see people playing volleyball or sitting outside hanging out with other countries' athletes). Real village-like atmosphere.

Curious about Eugene wrote:

I haven't heard anything good or bad about how well Eugene did for world juniors.

The execution of the championships was excellent. TrackTown USA Inc., Hayward and the UofO were great hosts, and I know the athletes really enjoyed the set-up.

Regarding spectators, the championships were sparsely attended in the first two days, but things ramped up nicely for the weekend. The enthusiasm of the crowd was noteworthy; they really got into the competition and supported athletes from many nations by cheering and clapping, loudly. Stadium announcers Garry Hill and Paul Swangard were great.

The bad side? The media turnout was only so-so. Kudos to the Register-Guard and the Oregonian for providing excellent coverage (in particular, there was lavish photography in the Guard).

Finally, the USA medal haul is particularly impressive because they did it without age-cheating. I can't say the same for some of the other teams...

David Monti, Editor & Publisher

Race Results Weekly

only lost 4 kids. so, not too bad!

The biggest complaint from the athletes was the lack of post-competition excursions to San Francisco and Hollywood. Apparently the IAAF treats WJR as a filler meet for off-years. Only a few of the wealthy VIPs, military generals, and royalty show up, so no money was spent for side trips. It might sound dumb to even bring it up, but in America we are rich, and take vacations every year. WHen we get older, many of us travel the world. For most of the WJR kids, this trip to the USA is the only luxurious vacation they will ever have in the entire life. Most will go back to poverty and a daily existence. This trip to Eugene was the highlight of their life that they will talk about until the day they die. Not providing a means to tour San Francisco, San Diego, Disneyland, Hollywood, etc. may seem quaint to Americans, but not for the world's poor, most of whom are the athletes who were at Oregon 2014 WJR.

Drive to San Francisco for an off-day? You're not from the western US, are you?

#Oregon2014 wrote:

Poor people from developing countries din't have the money to rent an car and drive to San Francisco like the German and Chinese teams did on their off days.

Thus the paid attendance at Hayward was half of the 51k mentioned since 1/2 the people in the stands were stuck in town and sat with free IAAF credentials around their necks.

1050 mile round trip on their off days? Nice try, if you're going to lie go back to 3rd grade first and learn some geography. You are not smarter than a 5th grader.

David Monti. wrote:

Finally, the USA medal haul is particularly impressive because they did it without age-cheating. I can't say the same for some of the other teams...

David Monti, Editor & Publisher

Race Results Weekly

Mr Monti: Since you're an actual player in global T&F rather than some anonymous letsrun message board poster, I expect more from you than nebulous accusations of age cheating by un-named athletes from un-named countries with no evidence attached. Please either elaborate on these accusations or drop them.

The rich who operate the IAAF never consider how poor the world is. The IAAF enters poor kids into small-time, little meets, without pay, and won't even show them the Golden Gate Bridge and Hollywood Walk of Fame for all the hard work the kids have put out for the IAAF.

University of Portland is 4 miles away. It could become their home track and they could host the outdoor NCAA championships. Would be awesome to also include an indoor track facility.