I loved the Milrose games!

I didn't see all of the coverage. However, what I did see was good. It was in HD, which is always nice and hasn't always been the case. The intro to the mile was good. The interviews with Lagat and Coughlan were great.

Considering it was an indoor meet in January, I would give it an A.

I'd like to see more splits on the screen, like each 400m instead of the splits how they are now. I'd also like to see them give more detailed bios on the screen with nationality, PRs at different distances as well as awards.

Very impressive evening for Cantwell. Not only was his 21.95 a huge throw, but he was consistent--he did not foul on any of his four attempts, and his WORST throw was 21.36, which still would have won the meet by two feet.

I was much less impressed with Batman in the 600 yards. 1:11 is not all that fast for an athlete of his caliber, even early in the season on a tiny track. If he ran perfectly even, he came through the 400m in 51.7.

The mile was very fun to watch. all in all a good meet.

I liked it, great to see T&F on TV – Thanks ESPN!!! Coverage was better than the past, no real “cringe moments”. I would have liked to see more of the High School events. At one point they even promo’ed on the screen “coming up the boys HS mile”, then they only showed the winner running the last quarter lap, what’s that? like 100 feet? They did the same for the girls. That was lame. They could have even yapped it up on whatever topic they were covering while at least showing the runners. But other than that, it was good. Wanamaker mile was great.

I was at the meet so I'm not sure what they showed on TV. But the women's mile with Hannah England just barely holding off Sara Hall was an exciting race, and Cory Mcgee's run in the HS girls mile was very impressive.

Teerible wrote:

Why waste money for old NFL has beens when they could pay appearance fees to current elites and sub-elites who need the money. You know they had to fly those old drips 1st Class and house them at the Marriott. They could have gotten elites and sub-elites who need the money and the exposure. Why waste time with softpedaling local HS and local college filler races. Those filler race kids ran like patsies just trying to make the spring travel team 2 months from now. Back in the day at Cow Palace & Sports Arena, west coast kids would shove you off the track like a basketball game then blame your mother. We ran for payback & blood not for gear bags and shoes.

They didn't stay at the Marriott, you jackass.

pay attention wrote:

I agree the event was great, and in person I'm sure it was a blast, but the television coverage is still presented poorly. However, I did find the commentary to be less ridiculously annoying than in past years.

Lastly, the Wannamaker Mile was totally fixed.

I don't think "fixed" is the right word, but it had about as much suspense as an episode of "Three's Company".

The presence of a hare, Krum, made the whole thing nice and orderly. Totally to Lagat's advantage. How about stacking the fields with some wild cards who might take it out in 56.0 or maybe get on the front and gum up the works.

The way it went down, and I was there in person, I felt like was watching a time trial or maybe even a workout.

Back in the day, guys like Scott would make Eammon work for the win. Can't say the field did that yesterday. That said, I'm looking forward to what KidRock can do outdoors!

The best part about the coverage was the Wannamaker mile. I think it was largely successful because the commentators did a good job of building up the race. They talked about the possibility of seeing history and even had a really great 95 bullesque introductions. Very well done by the venue and the TV coverage. It adds more credence to my point that our sport needs fewer events at track meets and more attention given to each event competed in (as in horse racing).

Putters wrote:

Very impressive evening for Cantwell. Not only was his 21.95 a huge throw, but he was consistent--he did not foul on any of his four attempts, and his WORST throw was 21.36, which still would have won the meet by two feet.

I was much less impressed with Batman in the 600 yards. 1:11 is not all that fast for an athlete of his caliber, even early in the season on a tiny track. If he ran perfectly even, he came through the 400m in 51.7.

The mile was very fun to watch. all in all a good meet.

The women's ELITE 400 meters was won in 55.07 seconds. That seemed incredibly slow to me....surely the MSG track isn't that slow?????

Mekonnen was originally entered, and would have been hard for Lagat to beat, but had to withdraw because he wasn't able to obtain a visa in time.

I agree. It was a fun meet and the coverage was fine.

I was surprised Kiprop was so tentative but I suppose that was inexperience indoors and being too tall for such a small track. I don't know what Baddely was thinking. He could have pushed Lagat harder than that.

What a disgrace for Mill to be on ESPN which has a fraction of the viewership of CBS, PBS, NBC, ABC. Arena track died long ago.

At what time can I find 60m with the football players? Hunting around is tough with the commercials.

searcher wrote:

At what time can I find 60m with the football players? Hunting around is tough with the commercials.

Found it. Here's some other markers.

0:00 women's 400

12:00 men's 60m hurdles

23:00 women's 60m hurdles

27:00 mens 800m

34:00 women's pole vault

40:00 men's shot put

44:00 super 60 (football players)

I have complained many times about poor television production and announcing. ESPN-2 did a great job last night for a live event. Whenever there was a lull in the action they filled it with pre-recorded events. Action, action, action is what T&F can offer and this broadcast showed how it can be translated to television.

Lewis, Ato, Dwight and the new blonde did a great job of giving the facts and staying out of the way of the action.

Not to say it was perfect but they did a really credible job. B+ to A- effort.

Thanks to all involved!

run with the wom wrote:

Lewis, Ato, Dwight and the new blonde did a great job of giving the facts and staying out of the way of the action.

Not to say it was perfect but they did a really credible job. B+ to A- effort.

Lewis, Ato, and Dwight definitely stepped their game up. I will agree. Nothing that they said really chafed with me nor did I find myself rolling my eyes during some races. I would agree with that grade. Maybe B to B+.

HOWEVER, that new blonde was absolutely terrible, and totally brought down their average.

Example #1: Barber just wins the 60 by a very close margin, Blonde announcer says "You just won by 3 one thousandths of a second! Was that a part of your strategy?!"

Example #2: Blonde constantly calls the new False Start Rule, the "No Start Rule" when interviewing athletes.

Those were just a couple off the top of my head, and in general, she just seemed to have no real experience in track and field. It seems that the powers that be must have thought "Oh, lets get a tall blonde to ask some questions...nobody pays attention to those interviews anyways." Pretty frustrating. But I guess she could have been a lot worse.

But all in all, the commentating was definitely an improvement over past meets.

I'm not sure what's up with these complaints about the Wanamaker Mile. Surely Baddeley, who'd run 3:55 six days before, did everything he could to win. Kiprop was actually leading for much of the race. Lagat's finish was devastating. Kiprop's and Baddeley's 3:58s are very good times for that track.

In answer to someone else's question, yes, the track is "that slow"...possibly the slowest track used at any "world class" meet in the world.

Yanqui wrote:

I'm not sure what's up with these complaints about the Wanamaker Mile. Surely Baddeley, who'd run 3:55 six days before, did everything he could to win. Kiprop was actually leading for much of the race. Lagat's finish was devastating. Kiprop's and Baddeley's 3:58s are very good times for that track.

In answer to someone else's question, yes, the track is "that slow"...possibly the slowest track used at any "world class" meet in the world.

I agree, the finish of Lagat was brutal. No one in the world could have beaten him in that race. The Olympic champ was in the race for gods sake, as well as another sub 3:50 guy, it wasn't a weak field at all-apart from maybe the last 3 finishers.

The blonde chick SUCKED!! that was painful, is she the same one who did interviews at NCAA XC?

yeah but it wasn;t like Kiprop was thinking about this meet for months like Lagat. He was a late entrant and didn't really plan to make his bebut in another month. I don't think he planned on having an out of this world indoor season let alone in January. Lately Lagats best stuff has come at Millrose as he has come up short a few times in late August.