Usain Bolt disses Eugene: "Sometimes it's all about where it is, America is not the biggest track and field place,"

I'm sorry, but as someone who has attended many meets at the old stadium and have now been to the new stadium on multiple occasions, I'll take the new Hayward 10 out of 10 times. I understand the history, but you've got to move on at some point. I got tired of someone's knees poking me in the back and my knees poking the person in front of me. The new stadium is f*cking awesome. The problem with the new Hayward is it's size. It's too big. I think it was a huge mistake to make a stadium to host Worlds, a one time occurence. A modern stadium that could sell out for USAs or the Trials would have made sense.

The article wasn't even about dissing Eugene. The author made a comment in the middle of the article & Bolt responded to it. I went to Worlds and it was packed every day I was there. There have been several versions of the World Champs in recent years without a ton of fans in the stands. I don't think there was disappointment over the crowds in Eugene. Weird to push that narrative, rather than build on a good event. Honestly feels like a PR piece put in place by Bolt's camp to put some pressure on World Athletics to come up with a role for him. & they should. He lined their pockets. Cut him a salary with benefits & a retirement. That's the intent of this article.

The best city for track and field competitions in the US is NYC. Randall’s island is an excellent place for events and they could have expanded the stadium. Not 💩 cago Or some no name town in middle America.

After watching the Pac-12s two weeks ago, why is no one talking about Hilmer Lodge Stadium at Mt. SAC in Walnut as the destination place in the US for track and field? Granted, it's a pain in the a$$ to get to from Los Angeles (LAX), but at least you have options on what airport you can fly in/out of, and plenty of hotels/motels for all budgets Looked to me like there was plenty of parking around the stadium.

If USATF is smart, the Olympic Trials should be there instead of Eugene...after all, Max & his cronies were the ones who screwed Mt. SAC over and yanked the Trials away & put it in Eugene.

yes without nike, the $150 billion company from Eugene, Oregon. that loves the city & university and funnels ~infinite money into it, Eugene would be a backwater. The same can be said of almost any other city that became big. where do these people come from

I read Bolt's whole article. As much as he wants to make the sport bigger, It fails on a lot of reasons that are even beyond his control. Yes, Bolt has over 12 million Instagram followers but Bolt is nothing more than a one-time thing for people outside of Track and Field.

1. He's a Sprinter (So we can watch literally 10 of his races before a mile race even finishes)

2. People only cared to watch Bolt, not his teammates or his fellow Track and Field Athletes. When people speak about major sports figures like Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo, or Lionel Messi...they can also think of the Chicago Bulls, Real Madrid, or Barcelona (Because it's a team sport) So it's different be a cult of personality in an individual sport compared to a team sport. Team sports are a lot more about skill than natural ability.

3. As I have said numerous times on this thread, Track and Field becomes hard to market (Especially with all the regulations imposed by World Athletics)

Cope harder. Vote harder! You're the poster-poster for having no argument, representing all the others.

Cause it's true. Successful American pro sports, other than football and basketball, have no important NCAA factor.

Baseball and hockey have their own minor leagues, where players get paid as they deserve. Boxing has its own amateur system. Tennis, golf, your top pros didn't get there because of college. Conversely, college standards like indoor volleyball, softball, field hockey, fencing, greco-roman wrestling, are not major pro sports.

Cope all you want but it's obvious why this is.

The poster above who mentioned euro population density makes a good point. Also the good public transport. I remember times back in Chicago driving around for 90 minutes looking for a parking space and ending up going home as it was a lost cause, especially when the Cubs played. Now living in Switzerland, you’d have to be a complete idiot to drive into Zurich or Lausanne to watch the DLs as it’s so easy and comfortable to get there by train.

Re: LA Grand Prix, I wonder how they marketed it. All this talk of doing a big meet in Chicago, I’d think with the thousands of high school and college kids within 100 miles, plus all the parents, a big meet with top talent would be a huge draw (like LA), but you’d have to market it around the burbs and on TV/internet correctly.

First, there are trains from all over the suburbs into Chicago through the Metra line and there's the CTA buses and trains within the city. There are plenty of parking garages in the city, plus remote parking that provide shuttle service, but if you insist upon street parking then I don't really sympathize, it's a major city with millions commuting daily.

Track in the US has always been promoted poorly, between Olympics most don't follow the sport and thus develop no consistent fan base. The venues are small-time, reminds me of the old Evangelical troupes that mostly stayed in rural areas. And the first pro track league in the 70's usually held meets in cities like Pocatello. It went belly up in a few years. This Heyward Magic argument is invisible to most...no one cares about historical track and field museums.

I've spent a lot of time in that area recently and I agree. Tons of hotels within 30 minutes of O'Hare Airport.

If you don't have a lot of money stay north of the city and take an Uber, or better yet, the train to the meet.

You don't know much about Chicago. Odds are the meet won't be on the South Side.

Soldier Field is on the South Side, that place is going to be packed this weekend for Taylor Swift, more than any Bears game unless Swift can pass rush unlike any of the current players. Kids are camping out there.

There's also the Trump Hotel right in the Loop for Let's Run posters. 😁

Agreed, no dis

Wait, you mean good policing works?

#Equity !

those shifts are easy paydays for them.

Bolt's not dissing Eugene or the US, just stating facts. It doesn't matter where you hold the meet in the US, because track and field is a niche sport in the US with a small fan base. Someone mentioned the old NY Diamond League meet that adidas sponsored at Randall's Island. Attendance was so bad and sponsorship was so hard to get that NY lost the meet to Rabat (population of 500,000 vs. NYC population of 8 million), where at least the meet was subsidized even if attendance was still bad. Someone mentioned Penn Relays. All that shows is that if you fill a meet with Jamaican runners, Jamaican fans will fill the stands because Jamaicans have the good taste to love track, unlike most Americans.

There's a good reason why Europe has about 10 DL meets and the US has 1 - because there are enough fans in Europe to sell tickets and for sponsors to think the meets are worth sponsoring. Pre only survives because Nike subsidizes it, just like the other DL meets around the world (Rabat, Doha, China, etc.) where they are mostly paid for by governments because they think it brings prestige, something else that wouldn't happen in the US except maybe in Oregon.

From a participation standpoint, running has never been bigger in the United States. It’s just that nobody cares about some skinny dudes and tiny women circling a track multiple times at a pretty quick pace.