KyleMerber wrote:
Since this is my job, I’ll give you a little insight — this happens at every single meet, you just don’t know it. It’s why most of the time you don’t get the start lists until the day before.
We made the decision that we’d rather publish the field 3+ weeks in advance of the 96 athletes that were intending to run. That’s not a soft verbal - those are contracts.
Unfortunately, things happen. I polled a bunch of media members, including Gault, asking if they’d prefer this methodology or only getting the final list a day before and their opinions were unanimous.
Remember, the Racers committed months ago! Some as far back as June 2024. And many Challengers signed in December. It’s impossible to know then that their Achilles would be bugging them the week before. When is the final lineup announced in the NFL or MLB? It’s sports!
I posted my remarks before I read more than 2 posts. I'm glad Kyle essentially agrees with what I said. He's done a good job creating these fields.
44/48 Racers showing up to me shows what happens when people are incentivized to do something. That ratio is amazing.
But the short term problem is one that is really hard to fix:
Sha’Carri Richardson, Julien Alfred, Shericka Jackson, Kishane Thompson, and Rasheed Broadbell are all slated to run in Florida this weekend, Jon has confirmed. For whatever reason they aren't down with the GST format. For the longest time I thought Thompson was a no-go for GST unless they didn't make him run the 200. Shericka is more of a surprise but she missed the entire Olympics last year so either she doesn't want to double or open up on a bigger stage.
I think there should be a way where certain athletes don't have to double. If it's truly "Only the Fastest" then it shouldn't be a requirement to double as some people aren't good at doubling and then you have situations where Sydney won't be racing the top 400m runners. But this is insider baseball type stuff.
I'd love to know if they sat down with any of the top coaches beforehand to discuss the format.