How Much Do Regular People Know About Track & Field?

They know Bolt and that is about it. More like they don't care. It's not entertainment sports like the ones with balls. IF you have no balls, they're not gonna care.

1. Katie Lidekey, Summer McIntosh (the Canadian girl), Leon? (the French guy)

2. 1 minute per 100m is a good high school time, so just go well under that and you've got your results. For example 1:45 would be a good 200m time for a pro swimmer. 4:10 or so for the 500m, seems like a good bet. Breast stroke is the slowest, freestyle is the fastest.

3. Everyone knows Mary Lou Retton - Perfect 10! And the girl who landed on a broken leg but stuck the landing! She was named Kerri Strug!

Yes, and that means they lump everyone "under 20 in the 5km" into the super-elite category. If your in-laws (and mine) walk-jog a 5km in 37:10, then there is no noticeable difference to them between a 13:08 5000m and a 16:03.

For most people, 8th at the OT 5000m and 1st at the Holiday Half are the same thing basically... In fact, winning the Holiday Half might be more impressive to people where I work because a half marathon is further than the 5000m.

I was talking to a co-worker and it came up that I was racing a 5km on the weekend. She was doing the 10km at the same race. She was very kind and told me that if trained hard I could do the 10km next year too!

But I think there are also only 1 in 10 people who can name one current NCAA football player. Nobody in my family can name a single player.

I am 100% sure not a single person in my extended family can name an active pro baseball player.

I think the lesson I am learning is that everyone is only into their thing. And because we have so many options these days, there is little shared cultural content. It isn't the 1940s anymore...

In the olden days we only had three tv channels, so we all watched the same sports. If they showed Carl Lewis on the TV, everyone in the country had to see Carl Lewis. But now, you have to log in to your sport on your app on your phone. Everything is super niche.

26.2 miles

Around $30,000

3:43

Grant Fisher, Mondo Duplantis, My girlfriend, My niece, My Nephew

There is no "normal" anything and if I were you I would avoid using that word!

The HJ is over 8 feet, The PV is over 18 feet.

Without looking those up, how average would you say I am for one who has ran for more than 50 years? I say that the avid track & field fan would not be able to answer your quiz to 100%.

This might be a struggle for some people to realise but there are people out there who just like to watch a sport. They don't know names of the participants or much about the history and wouldn't pass a test on the history of the sport but they just like watching.

Too many people on here moan track and field (in the US, obviously) is dying but then they try and gatekeep the sport and if anyone says they enjoy watching they will be asked "What time did Geoffrey Kirui run the 2017 Boston marathon in?" And get laughed at when they don't know who he is or that Boston even has a marathon.

Do you know what sports are successful? The ones that pick up transient fans when there is a big event on TV. Not everyone needs to know everything about a sport to enjoy it.

Nearly Every HS in the US has a Track and a Field.

Every kid knows the legends like Allyson Felix, Refer Johnson, Bryan Clay, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Sydney McLaughlin, etc.

This is it.

With only 3 channels, Shorter, Wottle, Pre, Joan Benoit, Flo Jo etc. were built up prior to their races by the network, and all of American watched the races.

Sports illustrated then covered the details.

Now only football, basketball and a bit still of baseball get that kind of mass exposure.

I coach high school trac and cross country. We have about 100 cross country runners and 230 in track and field. Some know Mclaughlin but none of them know the other athletes that you named. A handful of the distance guys know the top distance runners in high school and college and pro. That's about it.

- Marathon is hard

- Usain Bolt(maybe Noah Lyles?) is fast

- 4 minutes is a good mile time

That's all

This is true and extends to other domains as well. Like music. There will never be another Beatles because the structure of music and cultural consumption doesn't even allow for the possibility of such a thing to occur.

Also movies. Think of few movies leave any sort of cultural mark these days. Back in the '90s and '00s (when I was growing up), movies were a huge part of shared culture. People would all line up to see the big blockbusters and discuss them a lot at work and school. Now movies come and go and barely make a dent. People move on to the next thing, if they even bothered to see it at all.

Hell, this even occurs with television shows now, which have sort of usurped movies as the mode of visual story consumption in the era of streaming. Everyone is in their own little world consuming their own things. It's great for variety and there's something for everyone, but I do feel a sense of loss over that past shared culture.

Everyone knows the L.A. track legends like Allyson Felix, Rai Benjamin, Sydney McLaughlin, Jasmin Jones, Michael Norman, etc.

Shot put has balls

If you want true ignorance, ask U.S. citizens to name the three branches of our government. Most "citizens" couldn't pass our citizenship test without studying.

The average Joe knows zilch, zero, nada about athletics and when it comes down to the Olympics, they will be looking for the chisel fast dudes in the sprint races (maybe the 400 meters) Lets face it: athletics at the long distance level doesn't sell, its for a nice of scrawny nerds and weirdos.

"...niche of scrawny nerds and weirdos."

Most sports fans know the Legendary Olympic Four Schools have been for over 100 years USC, Stanford, UCLA, UC Berkeley.

How many Olympic Track and Field Gold Medals has USC Won? The most in World History for a school.