I’m a huge track fan. However, I not likely to spend 9 hours watching GST over a weekend next month. At a minimum they need to condense TV window to 2 hours per session. My other take away - with the money grab - I felt like I was watching a TV gameshow.
Watch on replay or delay. You can get through each day in less than an hour
I’m a huge track fan. However, I not likely to spend 9 hours watching GST over a weekend next month. At a minimum they need to condense TV window to 2 hours per session. My other take away - with the money grab - I felt like I was watching a TV gameshow.
how is this a money grab?? huh? it's hemorrhaging money rn
It's fascinating to see how much Fisher's kick has improved in the last 12 months. The knock on him for years was that he always got 2nd place: McDonald x3, Justyn Knight, McGorty, Nuguse all outkicked him for NCAA champs. Even Klecker outkicked him for the USA 10,000 title in 2021 or 22. All good guys, but Fisher really had a hard time dropping anything better than 54, maybe 53 on the last lap. He's now suddenly grown himself a seriously good kick. He didn't run a brave race today, but I could totally see him winning the 10 in Tokyo with a kick like this.
He’s preparing not just to out close Aregawi, he’s preparing for the biggest take down of all….Jakob. Why not, he’s out kicked Hocker this year, so what’s next for him?
Will Fischer outsprint Jakob? Do you really think that's even possible? I think we underestimate Jakob too much on this forum, which is even disgusting.
Gebriwhet doing what he should have done in the OLympic 5000m final. Quick pace and a huge gap.
Someone needs to explain to me how this doesn't look like a Diamond League race - except at a much lower level of performance?
Even Cram just pointed out that Fisher just needs to win the "second race" - aka come 3rd, to win the "money" - so now guys are racing for 3rd but this is the premier racing league in the world? And for the record I don't blame Fisher at all - do what you need to do, but these are serious flaws in your concept.
Stop it already! My finger hurts from liking all you posts😂
There is nothing to reinvent here, GST is trying to turn track and field into something it’s not.
genuinely bummed that amazing athletes like fisher Hocker nuguse signed for the season, it’s starting to look like a really bad use of their prime years
Fisher is a professional track athlete who just earned $100k in one weekend. That’s a good use of his prime.
ya
$100k for speed work.
once you saw Fisher close in the olympics you knew his kick was very good.
his aerobic improved as well so there is gas in the tank.
so
he used his brain to collect yhe cash and set up for the season.
No he's not - he's not even remotely in race shape and he didn't care. Someone try and tell me he didn't mail that in? Weldon - you out there? He ran 1.50.7 - he didn't become a national HS level kid overnight - either he came into this meet not race fit and/or didn't care about the result.
I mean even Wanyoni didn't give it his all because he knew he had the money locked up - he didn't fight Arop at all there - he was looking around with 50 to go making sure he had his numbers right.
I don't see this "pinnacle of competition" at all? Or am I missing something?
Gebriwhet doing what he should have done in the OLympic 5000m final. Quick pace and a huge gap.
In the Olympic final the field would have responded differently than they did today, because the incentives were different than they were today. It would've been a quick pace, but a small gap, because an Olympic gold is far more important than a Grand Slam 1 first-place. Top athletes could have hung with him.
Hot take: Grant has done GST (and us) a favor by understanding and playing the incentives very well. He's helped to demonstrate for them how their system works. If they don't like the behavior they are seeing, if they think it illustrates a problem in the system they've set up -- then they can change the incentive structure. Maybe they will. (Maybe next year, depending on how obligated they are to keep things the same. Even if they can do it under the terms of athlete contracts, changing it could burn athlete trust by altering the deal they thought they were getting.)
But actually, if I were running GST, I would leave it alone for at least this year, because part of the point seems to be that the series is an iterated game, not a one-off. There are 3 more of these, the tactics will adjust as people see what their competitors are doing, what works and what doesn't, etc. I highly doubt slams 2, 3, and 4 will play out exactly the same way. Even if you don't like how people ran here, we should see what the full season of distance races looks like, not just this one.
As one example, I don't think Hagos will be content with today's result of winning a 3000 and not getting $100,000, and he'll probably try to come up with something different in the next series to avoid this situation. (Next time the 3000 is first, too, so it'll be the reverse of today: it'll be about trying to perform well enough in the 3000 to have a shot in the 5000.)
This is a career for these guys, not a hobby like it is for the rest of us. Why would Grant expend more energy than necessary in order to bring home the bag? Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
He was obviously VERY confident in his kick, which is really nice to see. He did expend the least possible energy, but definitely lowered his chances of finishing top three by not going with the leaders and then just settling in behind Bekele. That would have left nothing at all up to chance.
That's what would happen if the only change made to the race was Grant being up there and the rest of the pack failed to follow. But that's not a realistic change to make. If Grant had stuck with Bekele and Gebrhiwet, the whole pack would have as well.
I think this should be viewed more like a decathlon than an individual race. The sets of racers are balanced such that each racer needs to run up the score in their better event to win overall, and if you fail to do that (like the 1500 guys or Hagos), you're gonna be in trouble. I think they could tweak the point numbers to make it more interesting, but the format is something new and interesting that isn't just "everyone get in a single file line for 90% of the race then make a decisive move at 200 to go". It requires a different strategy for every race, and I think the racers would do well to spend more time strategizing and studying their competitors (a practice that will help them for championships!)
I know they're not the premier pros, but the Coffee Club guys talk about their competitors sometimes and it really doesn't seem like they're doing any kind of "watching film" that pros in most other sports would be doing. I mean Bekele and Hagos should not be losing to Teare and Jacobs in a 5000.
Discover the magic of the internet at Imgur, a community powered entertainment destination. Lift your spirits with funny jokes, trending memes, entertaining gifs, inspiring stories, viral videos, and so much more from users.
I think this should be viewed more like a decathlon than an individual race. The sets of racers are balanced such that each racer needs to run up the score in their better event to win overall, and if you fail to do that (like the 1500 guys or Hagos), you're gonna be in trouble.
Maybe convert all performances to World Athletics points and the highest combined score wins. Just like in the decathlon, you could look at the point tables and be able to say, "Runner A must beat Runner B by 0:xx.xx in order to win the $100,000."
Fisher would not have been able to finish so far behind first place if he wanted to win.
My fix: get GST investors to pool resources and boot Wanda as DL title sponsor so they can have more influence. Much of what GST is doing now tries to reinvent the wheel but misses the mark.
WA made the mistake trying to broaden the audience by hosting meets on other continents but it's been a failure. Improve on what already works and it will draw larger audiences. Take a lesson from XC Ski and Biathlon world cups with dedicated fans showing up in the snow to see the best compete. Also there's needs to be world championships every year there isn't an Olympics.
There is no cure for the US. The biggest pro sports here all have players unions - even tennis and golf. Track and field is a very old sports model that has not evolved like the other sports - and USATF is entirely corrupt. It's a structural problem that cannot be fixed by hosting better meets. Collegiate competition is alive and well in the US but pro track is on life support. We may have many of the best athletes in the world but the structure is lacking for anything other than a few invitationals to succeed.
Improve DL:
- keep DL centered in Europe. Reduce total number of meets and shorten season by eliminating Asia and Africa events where stands are not full and many athletes don't want to travel anyway. Focus on locations that are known draws.
- there can be mini series within the DL with three or four meets that try new matchups and GST ideas like the men's and women's hurdlers going head to head on the flat. Or pole vaulters 100m. Or shot putters 50m.
- replace Eugene with east coast location and small stadium that can be promoted and developed. Sacrilege I know but they shot themselves in the foot and are no longer a reliable draw and too far for many athletes to travel. The mystique is gone and even US athletes find it difficult and expensive to travel there.
if it’s about money that build a competitor to Diamond league with better prize money, huge bonuses for world records etc. that will attract athletes.
but there is so much nonsense here it’s just so hard to see past: doubling, the weird “times don’t matter at all” stuff, no splits no results in the site, forcing athletes to run off events. Why ??
why do I want to watch 110m hurdlers run high school times in the 100 ? Why link two events together who someone can just win one event and jog the other and still win the whole thing
I am a huge Track fan, love diamond leave and wc and I have no idea what I just watched but it was not exiting.
im Not sure who they are trying to attract to these events but if you leave behind die hard track fans I think you will fail.
They have tried to build competitors for the diamond league and they don't work for the same reasons the diamond league doesn't work.
I’ve seen NCAA conference meets better than what I saw today. Every race non competitive. Guys sprinting to run 8:03 in the 3k. Slow times. Empty stands. And a horn that kept going off which gave me a headache. Please end this failed experiment now. I won’t watch another minute of it.
I’m a huge track fan. However, I not likely to spend 9 hours watching GST over a weekend next month. At a minimum they need to condense TV window to 2 hours per session. My other take away - with the money grab - I felt like I was watching a TV gameshow.
For me, the vuvuzelas gave the meet a soccer match feel and helped to transform the (largely empty) stadium stands into an essentially aural space that enhanced rather than distracted from the racing.
"Easy to tell apart... the white kit and the red kit"
John Anderson SHUT UP 😂
Right before that he mistook Wanyonyi for Arop when they were on the line. Might have been dismissible if it was mid-race, but that camera shot clearly showed it was Wanyonyi. I did cringe a little.
Interesting to see Johnson not so subtly call out the distance athletes, noting it wasn't "that strong of a field". I get that it's short notice - but what did you really expect when you're calling up CPT and Infield? Neither is relevant in top tier racing (one could argue CPT never was)
So why no hurdles for the hurdle races? Were they stolen overnight?
Yeah the hurdles event groups where half the races don’t have hurdles seems sorta half baked.
Seems like this would be the group where you could just make them race their own event twice, if doubling is key. The races aren't long enough to cause a problem, you're watching the best go head to head twice at something they're good at, and no subset is getting disadvantaged the way other groups would if they always had to race the same distance.
It's fascinating to see how much Fisher's kick has improved in the last 12 months. The knock on him for years was that he always got 2nd place: McDonald x3, Justyn Knight, McGorty, Nuguse all outkicked him for NCAA champs. Even Klecker outkicked him for the USA 10,000 title in 2021 or 22. All good guys, but Fisher really had a hard time dropping anything better than 54, maybe 53 on the last lap. He's now suddenly grown himself a seriously good kick. He didn't run a brave race today, but I could totally see him winning the 10 in Tokyo with a kick like this.
Yep. And as dumb as it sounds to say about a bunch of professionals who do this for a living, I think it's really underrated how great of an opportunity GST gives some of these guys to practice unpaced racing and different types of finishes again. Usually it's what, maybe indoors and then nationals where they get that chance? It's not a perfect preview, since Grant presumably won't be just giving up on 1-2 at world championships, but it can't hurt to get more experience in maneuvering through traffic while kicking it down. And as someone who enjoys watching Hagos run, I'm excited to see what happens when he and Grant get to sharpen up against each other all season before champs.
