Jakob is not even close to being a top 3 star in the sport.
Sydney
Athing is still more popular
Lyles
Duplantis
Grant Holloway
Shacarri
Rai
Gabby Thomas
Probably a few more
Jakob, Lyles, and Duplantis are objectively the big three in the world of Athletics right now. Everyone else is secondary. Jakob is main man in middle distance to distance, Lyles in the Sprints, and Duplantis in the field events with his World Records. Sydney dominates a weak event historically. Athing hasn’t run in years now. Holloway is great but no Outdoor world records and 110 hurdles isn’t as prestigious. Rai has less medals and no WR. The Women also face less competition so they do not count. Like it or not the main stars are Men.
You forgot Femke Bol, she's the biggest European after Duplantis
Carrie Tollefson was the broadcast star today, IMO. Superb job. She basically paused the middle of the women's 1500 to give Diribe Welteji's resume. You never hear anything like that. But Tollefson understood it was necessary after the pre race panel and especially Centrowitz had essentially dismissed Welteji and framed the race as nothing but Hiltz versus Hull.
Centrowitz did a great job overall. He is a broadcast natural. His one flaw both days has been underestimating Welteji. I mentioned that yesterday. That race was anything but an upset. Welteji entered this meet with an 8-2 lifetime head to head edge over Hull at 1500 and 5-1 over Hiltz. Yet somehow she has remained easily the most underrated athlete in track and field for years. I was very pleased for Welteji and hope this boosts her profile. But she should have agreed to a post race interview. They asked her but she quickly said no. That was a mistake, a one common to many Ethiopians. Regardless of language barrier just smile and say anything that comes to mind.
The most disgusting medal result of Paris was Georgia Bell sitting back and picking Diribe Welteji at the line for bronze. Welteji had high ambitions after Budapest 2023 silver followed by defeating Kipyegon a month later in the inaugural road mile. Consequently she tried to win in Paris. Hull and especially Bell sat further back and were content with lesser medals. I always despise it when the bold attempt falls out of the medals completely. I'm American but have always emphasized that Raevyn Rogers picking Jemma Reekie by .01 for bronze was the single most undeserved outcome from Tokyo 2021. That one was even worse than Welteji/Bell.
The consequences this winter have been Hull introduced in every meet as silver medalist and Bell as bronze medalist, while Welteji stands there silently better than either one of them.
That is the problem amongst most american fans. It is always about america, american athletes and american based athletes. Most of them don't give credit to europeans and specially to any africans. In my opinion the disrespect is crazy.
And that is with them giving away tickets for free. If you showed you could enter for free...
Only slam with full capacity might be the Florida one, but the stadium has only 5,000 seats. Still, an event that is supposey featuring the best of the best should be able to sell out stadiums with 30k+ seats like DL does.
But, yeah, they also need to stop talking or asking about the money. I know it's a big deal, but the racing is why I'm here and what I want to know and hear about; the money is why the athletes are here. Money talk should be in the background during the event, and maybe discussed more in the in-between fluff pieces.
They can't stop talking about the money because that is the only good thing they have. They have to juice it to the max, otherwise what excitement is there on talking about having the biggest point combination in 2 events when most of the people don't even know how the system works.
That is the problem amongst most american fans. It is always about america, american athletes and american based athletes. Most of them don't give credit to europeans and specially to any africans. In my opinion the disrespect is crazy.
There is delusion on the women’s side. There are levels - 3:55/14:25/30:00 are nice times but they dont make you a medal contender. Yet its often acted like Nikki/Cranny/Morgan and others are right there. With a jump from there yes…until then no. Shelby was close once but the 1500 leveled up and 2019 Shelby wouldve been 5th if airdropped into Paris. And thats with a field missing F. Hailu due to politics and Tsegay bombing. Right now these women are closer to Susan Ejore than a medal.
That is the problem amongst most american fans. It is always about america, american athletes and american based athletes. Most of them don't give credit to europeans and specially to any africans. In my opinion the disrespect is crazy.
There is delusion on the women’s side. There are levels - 3:55/14:25/30:00 are nice times but they dont make you a medal contender. Yet its often acted like Nikki/Cranny/Morgan and others are right there. With a jump from there yes…until then no. Shelby was close once but the 1500 leveled up and 2019 Shelby wouldve been 5th if airdropped into Paris. And thats with a field missing F. Hailu due to politics and Tsegay bombing. Right now these women are closer to Susan Ejore than a medal.
Exactly. If you don’t even have the three biggest stars of the sport right now (Jakob, Lyles, Duplantis) then this league won’t be any better than the diamond league and it is worse.
Jakob is not even close to being a top 3 star in the sport.
Sydney
Athing is still more popular
Lyles
Duplantis
Grant Holloway
Shacarri
Rai
Gabby Thomas
Probably a few more
Not true. I have friends that know next to nothing about T&F and they would not identify anybody from that list except Jacob Ingebrigstein.
They do care. Athletes live to compete and want badly to win.
Naturally you need to structure the training to fit the whole season. Not being in the peak shape is very different from "not caring".
What do they care about winning more? The Grand Slam track Jamaica short distance 1500m or the World Championships?
When I hear of multiple coaches talking about how they are training their guys through Grand Slam Track and taking the results with a grain of salt, that tells me all I need to know. Then again, I probably have access to different information than you do.
Was that ever a question for those who understand at least a little bit about running?
Well, he definitely wouldn't be the best in this format. He would certainly lose to Wanyonyi in a slow race and very possibly to Hocker/Kerr/Nuguse in a race that he is forced to lead most of the way. And he would be very lucky to score three points in the 800.
One of the pleasures of GST is it shakes things up in a few ways.