USA Indoor Track and Field Championships were a DISGRACE - Agree or Disagree??

Track and field on the Internet is great entertainment, much better paced than the narrated highlights reel that is presented on television. But the purse sizes at USATF Indoors ($2500 for first?) are not high enough to pay for airfare, meals and a hotel room for any but the winners. So the "big name" competitor was a 16 year-old rich kid. Just think how compelling her performance would have been against a couple of runners like Uceny, Rowbury, Simpson, Pierce, Schmidt, Anderson or Martinez. Better promotion of the event would help and might raise some money: Albuquerque is a big city now and well capable of mustering much more than the 2000 or so die-hards who showed up (how many were coaches, close friends or relatives of the athletes? - Cain had a dozen or more all by herself). What were there, a few dozen to watch a world record in pole vault? A little promotion and civic pride ought to be able to pack the place.

To fill out the fields the money is there, its just how USATF decides to utilize what they are giving athletes as stipends.

If an athlete is on a USATF stipend a mandatory clause to run in the USA championships should be stipulated. Its a small request twice a year (indoor and outdoor ) that compete. If a distance runner cannot run indoor then he or she can fill commitment by running in USA road championship or x-country.

Sweeting the purse or buying the athlete is never the answer , a commitment that they ( the athlete ) can decide on wether to commit to a stipend or not.

Venue may help as well , ALBQ may win the bids to host but are they really the best facility vs Armory , easy for the fly in and out of NYC , great crowd support and ample sponsorship.

I'll agree that the meet was better than it looked on paper, but that still wasn't very good.

I'll agree that it should be in Boston or NYC, and what's more - make it earlier in the season - by March the pros would rather be taking it easy and getting ready for outdoor than dealing with a big meet situation.

it sounds weird, but make it in January or February, when there is some demand by pros for fast races. To get A standards, or just to check fitness. And don't do it at altitude, for pete's sake.

Some other sports have their big event early - the Daytona 500 is the most important stock car race and it is first. The Indy 500 is early in the yr.

Track seasons normally end with championship meets, but it doesn't have to be so. The success of the Boston and NYC indoor meets shows that the big guns will show up given the right incentives.

Watched the meet on tv and I enjoyed it. If you follow t&f and know the story lines you should have enjoyed it. Once every 4 years, when there is an Olympics or WC, but no world indoors, the usatf meet is always missing a lot of the elites. Btw, usatf missed the boat by not having a 5k this year because they would have had Jerry guys and perhaps as few ncaa athletes as well.

A 5k at altitude would not allow Jerrys kids to go after an AR or A standard qualifying times. THEY WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN THERE if a 5k was added.

"Venue may help as well , ALBQ may win the bids to host but are they really the best facility vs Armory , easy for the fly in and out of NYC , great crowd support and ample sponsorship."

Aren't there rules the USATF has to follow reqarding where meets are held. If the rules state meets are bid out, well that's what has to happen.

hanging out wrote:

"Venue may help as well , ALBQ may win the bids to host but are they really the best facility vs Armory , easy for the fly in and out of NYC , great crowd support and ample sponsorship."

Aren't there rules the USATF has to follow reqarding where meets are held. If the rules state meets are bid out, well that's what has to happen.

They go to a city willing to cover the cost of putting on the meet. IIRC Albee-Quirky was the only bid.

which part of my earlier post did you not understand? passively putting it up for bid shows a complete lack of competence.

So many people on this discussion page really don't know crap about what really goes on. To host a meet like the USA Indoor is a major undertaking and not everyone can do it. The folks at ABQ (the ab for Albuquerque) have done a fantastic job of making the meet special. The meet is a money loser and we should be giving thanks to anyone who wants it. Boston and NY have clearly shown they don't care about the meet so why should USATF cram the meet down their throats. For those of you saying that these two venues do a great job - BS. In the past they have essentially ignored the meet when it came to town. I'd rather have someone hosting that really works hard at the event, and where the people actually care.

I think there's a bigger issue: Do we want to see indoors (outside NCAA) totally die in the USA? IF a race falls in the forest, and there's nobody here to see it because they never race here, why should sponsors keep putting up the money for pro athletes?

Imagine how bad things would have been if Rupp and Lagat had not been doing their AR thing, and Mary was doing high school meets. Part of the problem is how athletes can continue to turn professional and be able to make a living. Without an indoors schedule, professional track athletes hardly get any chance to be seen in the USA. We are already down to really 2 meets plus the championships, which is not going to keep anyone's attention.

Now, I've been to Albuquerque as both a coach and an unattached competitor. The track itself is great, and I honestly believe the people running it try to do a good job. But ABQ is not LA or NYC. Boise also has a great facility, but it's not NYC either.

It seems to me that what's at stake is more than who wins a bid or whether top athletes consider the prize money acceptable. They (USATF, the RD/promoter, and the athletes) are all in this thing together, and if they don't take a longer view than the next 2 months, they will not have a pie to divide. Pro Indoor track in the USA is almost gone. They're not going to like the result if they allow this to continue.

It was an embarrassment. I lay some of the blame on the uneducated fan base. When a women's championship mile goes out in 82, everyone should be on the feet booing as loudly as possible. When you see 2:55 at the half, fans should be screaming for blood. The rest of the races weren't much better.

Fat Boy wrote:

It was an embarrassment. I lay some of the blame on the uneducated fan base. When a women's championship mile goes out in 82, everyone should be on the feet booing as loudly as possible. When you see 2:55 at the half, fans should be screaming for blood. The rest of the races weren't much better.

disagree with this i/s/t- that was a thrilling race. If it were the same old crew it might have been a little dull, but with la cain patrolling the perimeter it I was glued to the screen. No one knew what this new girl could or would do.

any views on moving the meet to early february? would that attract more pros?

also, remember that this was an off yr - when it is a qualifier for worlds it has a much better field.

plus there is the problem of distance runners needing A standards that they can't get at altitude w/o pacers.

give me a break about it being such a major undertaking. the armory has meets going on nearly every night all winter long and hosts meets every bit as complex as indoor nats. do you actually think that the armory or boston couldn't pull off hosting nats or are you just being argumentative?

what was so "special" about nats this weekend? that it was embarrassingly poorly contested?

how have ny and boston "clearly shown they don't care about the meet?" how did the armory "ignore" nationals when it came to town when it hasn't been in nyc since the armory was renovated??? now you are just making things up. why don't you come clean and just say that you are some insecure whiny person from ABQ and are completely biased here? you might at least have some credibility.

androgyny wrote:

give me a break about it being such a major undertaking. the armory has meets going on nearly every night all winter long and hosts meets every bit as complex as indoor nats. do you actually think that the armory or boston couldn't pull off hosting nats or are you just being argumentative?

what was so "special" about nats this weekend? that it was embarrassingly poorly contested?

how have ny and boston "clearly shown they don't care about the meet?" how did the armory "ignore" nationals when it came to town when it hasn't been in nyc since the armory was renovated??? now you are just making things up. why don't you come clean and just say that you are some insecure whiny person from ABQ and are completely biased here? you might at least have some credibility.

FYI the meet was last held at the armory in 2002, (after the renovation). If Millrose sold out, I would think that the national championships would sell out also in NY. While the track is fast the crowd capacity is small and the sight lines are terrible.

The other problem is that the best US athletes don't care about getting a US indoor title, plus the best college athletes won't show up since they are getting read for the NCAA indoor.

I thought I'd end up skipping through most of it on DVR and ended up watching the whole thing. It was a good, exciting meet, and the television coverage was surprisingly competent. The Hutchings/Bolden/Dan O'Brien grouping is so much better than the Tom Hammond/Dwight Stones/Carol Lewis mess they were throwing out last year.

I agree with your thoughts on the coverage. Except, I'm not sure Dan O' Brien is going to make it. He seemed unsure of himself. But, you have to start somewhere. I like Dwight Stones. He knows what he's talking about and provides insight that the average viewer might not know.

It was a disgrace... A bunch of no names winning.

It was a crappy meet because no one likes the usatf organization, and because no one likes the commercial and parochial coverage of meets on tv.

People want good meets, and good coverage on the free internet.

It all comes down to $$$$$ and USATF demands. ALB put up a good bid and so they indoor champ meet stays where they do not run indoor track. How ironic. No, how usatf.;