Would rather see them get rid of the event groups altogether. Rotate distances for each slam.5k and 3k are so similar and a tough double which is why you see a jog fest.
That is like getting mad that the yellow jersey doesn’t try to win every stage. I see your point about having some sort of carrot to keep Fisher from letting him win by too much though.
The reason to prorate is that if they were simply time trialing a one second win in the 3000 is not equal to a one second win in the 5000. Sure it is reasonably close, but the 3000 effort gets less value because it is shorter.
Right - but this is a two meet or "stage" tour involving 22min of running and not 3 weeks and almost 80 hours of cycling. I don't think it's quite the same.
And we can agree to disagree on the 3000m v 5000m thing - I don't see any relevance to this at all. We (would be) working off a combined time basis and each athlete runs each event together at the same time and same place. The way you want to do it actually biases an event and (in this case) makes the 3000m more important because with respect to today you would have actually stretched the winning margin of Gebrhiwet to account for an assumption he would have won a 5000m by more? Yeah, no. But you can hold on to your opinion there, it's yours.
First you embarrass the sport with a time that wouldn't win high school nationals. Then you LET GEBRIWHET RUN AWAY? I understand Fisher mathematically doesn't need to beat them but there are MULTIPLE men who didn't even attempt to run with him. I'm watching a stadium of fourteen total spectators and Gebriwhet is running alone while the Americans JOG for THIRD PLACE. No wonder no one wants to watch this sport. It's a race! F*cking race! For christ sakes. I want to know what was going through the mind of the guys who decided to let two guys get over 150m on them in less than 4 minutes. This made me (a diehard fan) want to turn the TV off, throw it out my window, and pray that it hit someone on the way down.
Prefontaine is rolling in his grave right now. I'd rather watch professional jigsaw puzzle contests than another second of this stupid track meet. Michael Johnson spent too much time getting 100K prizes for running 14:40 and forgot to get 100 people in the stands. Every Diamond League in existence (even the covid ones) have had more people in attendance than Grand Slam. Next Slam I'd love to see Kyle Merber vs. Michael Johnson in an ego inflation contest. It'll be a guaranteed world record.
Just adding the times while simple gives more importance to the 5000. Sure you can do that, but it devalues the 3000 to some extent. Imagine if the decathlon just added the times of the running events together. The 1500 then becomes massively more important than the other running events.
If you were going to make this change, wouldn’t you also do it for other event groups like middle distance? Is a 1 second 1500 win a fair trade for a 1 second win in the 800? The 1500 specialist could have easily ended the competition on day one by going sub 3:30.
But this also brings up the question of "handshake deals" like in cycling. Teare could have (in theory) beaten Grant today and still not taken the $100,000. What is to stop Grant from saying, "Coop, don't pip me at the line and I'll kick back ten grand to you after the meet."
This used to happen all the time in bike racing when one guy could ruin it for his friend, but not win the money for himself. Smart riders didn't let that happen.
The incentives were clear, and the athletes responded to them. Stop being a hyperbolic whinyboi and simply don't watch. The organizers will have to respond thusly.
I actually found it entertaining and risky from Grant. He was probably OK but Kwemoi made some tactical errors and really wasn’t that much worse than him with a more sound last 400. That being said the 12 point winners thing while noble somewhat backfired. Too overwhelming a factor getting that lead. 10 points and tiebreak is good enough, they overthought the running getting two 2nds idea. Just devalue the combined score a little maybe half goes in individual placing and half in cumulative. Honestly the intrigue of who wins the overall while OK as a novelty could easily be replaced by Hagos going out that fast and Grant thinking am I going to forfeit and let him get an easy $25K for a smaller reward.
Grant raced smartly both days. He is the first grand slam champion. If this somehow upsets you too much don’t bother to watch…maybe tune in a baseball game, we attend the meet it was great fun, athletes were available to talk to, Jamaica has the best track fans (sorry Eugene) No more to be said except we look forward to Miami😅
I actually found it entertaining and risky from Grant. He was probably OK but Kwemoi made some tactical errors and really wasn’t that much worse than him with a more sound last 400. That being said the 12 point winners thing while noble somewhat backfired. Too overwhelming a factor getting that lead. 10 points and tiebreak is good enough, they overthought the running getting two 2nds idea. Just devalue the combined score a little maybe half goes in individual placing and half in cumulative. Honestly the intrigue of who wins the overall while OK as a novelty could easily be replaced by Hagos going out that fast and Grant thinking am I going to forfeit and let him get an easy $25K for a smaller reward.
Yeah, once it was clear how this was going to go up front I was extremely interested in whether this was going to blow up spectacularly for Grant. He's really improved his close, but I did wonder if Teare or Kwemoi might make him regret that math. Would've been hilarious and rewarding to Hagos, who ran like a boss today; as it is, Grant trusted his kick and was rewarded for being right, which is also a good outcome. I do think, specifically for the long distance group, either reducing the 1st place points or adding times makes sense. Giving the winners 10 works, as day 1 winners wouldn't really have a choice but to go with Hagos/Bekele/whoever goes for it next time. Lack of proration wouldn't be fair for shorter distances where you're combining specialists (800 vs. 1500), but it wouldn't be an issue here. If they keep the 5000 first, it would also incentivize people to keep it more honest and try to build a gap/not get gapped before the 3000m. Either way, no shade on these guys for running the way they were incentivized to run this time--if Hagos doesn't blow up quite as badly on day 1, or if Grant gets boxed badly, or if someone else comes out of the chase-pack scramble on top, it's a different outcome. Good stuff.
This post was edited 52 seconds after it was posted.
Reason provided:
Typo
Maybe dunking on Grant for not attempting to win is warranted, but criticism needs to be directed at Cooper & Dylan for doing the same. These three beat everyone else on Friday, so why not try to stay close -- could anyone have beaten Bekele if they would have least made the attempt?
Since the long distance group is presumably drawn from steeplers, 5000 and 10,000 specialists -- and they have to double within a 3-day window in heat & humidity -- I would much prefer to see what they can do in the 1500 & 3000 rather than their specialties. If the 1500 comes first, a day off will be plenty of time to be fresh for the 3000. Which might put them in the mindset to go all-out in the latter race vs. running for place/$ as we saw today.
Lesson Learned: either ditch the double for the distance group, or change the 5000 to the 1500 or even 2000.
it 100% should be either 15/5 or 15/3.
I'd say 15/5, just to give the truly distance oriented runners a fair shake.
I like it, but I would say mile/5k or mile/3k so you really have imperial appeal! 😀
I'd say 15/5, just to give the truly distance oriented runners a fair shake.
I like it, but I would say mile/5k or mile/3k so you really have imperial appeal! 😀
Actually I would be even more interested in 5k and then 800m or 3k and 800m. Would have to do the 800 hard. The fun part in the other races was that they were so different.
I'd say 15/5, just to give the truly distance oriented runners a fair shake.
I like it, but I would say mile/5k or mile/3k so you really have imperial appeal! 😀
Said this a few times already but I might as well reiterate here.
I think the two BIGGEST issues are the event groups and number of competitors. There are some doubles that athletes simply just won't do as well in. There needs to be a 4/8 group, a 3k/5k group, a 1500/3k group, etc...
And for the longer distance groups, there needs to be more competitors. Nobody wants to watch a slow ass 5000m race with only eight sweaty dudes looking like they're doing their morning run together. That was lame. There needs to be more people. Simply put.
The 8 racers thing should only apply to events 800 down.
That Grant Fisher dude! World record holder? I expect him to go for a world record every single time he runs, no matter what the distance race, and if he fails, he is a loser to the max. Hrump! Can you imagine Steve Prefontaine not going for the gusto ever time he ran? So WHAT if Pre lost a medal in the '72 Olympic 5k because of his macho approach to running! Fisher should have gone for the win in Kingston, as Pre would have done, and if he blew up, who cares? I'd still applaud his effort. I mean, what $100,000, anyway?
I would prefer it if they just had one distance race per meet and did 10000, 5000, 3000 and 1500 over the four meets.
Grant was the fastest guy in the field on PRs. I honestly think it would have been less risky for him to go with the leaders. They were not running so fast he was at risk of blowing up. Anything can happen in a kick finish with 6 guys, I don't think that was a smart move but he won so what do I know.
Overall GrandSlam if a very flawed concept. Track works when it is a 2 to 3 hour meet with short gaps between events. They could have done the diamond league format (that works) without pacers. People are not interested in a three day meet with big gaps between events and people running their B event. I am not interested in watching Sydney run a 400 again people she could beat if she ran over hurdles and they ran on the flat.
The sport has a lot of participation with park runs, mass marathons etc. but not much interest from people in the elite end of the sport. Why not combine the two things to fill stadiums and make it more commercially viable. Have a one day 2-3 hour track meet after a mass participation event. Combine with a 5k, 10k, half marathon or marathon. Hell even have heats of mile races or 100m for people to have a go at.
Johnson was crazy for giving out $100k, a lot of these athletes would've showed up for $10k-$25k. Is Teare okay in the head? There was $100k on the line, I would've stuck to Gebriwhet and Bekele like glue and you would've had to take me out on a gurney at the end of the race while I die trying to win. If he does this when there's $100k on the line, what is he going to do when World's in on the line at usa's? I'm really looking at this guy crazy right now, I just don't know how you don't die trying to stick to Bekele and Gebriwhet, this isn't some random meet.
They didn't cut away from the distance races for commercials or field events. At all. I don't remember the last NBC streamed pro meet in which the move/breakaway happened on screen. They're ALWAYS on a commercial or showing Jav/Pole vault/high jump at the most pivotal moments.
The format meant that the finish of the second pack MEANT something, unlike diamond leagues in which an American could break 13:00 but won't be seen on the screen because the race was won in 12:46. The screen kept moving between the two races, and the idea of 'racing the race you're in' was a great piece of commentary from Tollefson.
You do realize teams do just enough to win all the time, right? If you view it as two halves of the same competition then it’s basically a football team out scoring a team by 14 in the first half before getting out scored by 13 in the second half but controlling the clock. It’s called ✨tactics✨
For Grant, having the 12 points for the winner taken out of the race basically secured his overall victory. He had the least incentive to chase, and put the victory back into play.