It’s unfortunate.
But yes, that 5000m was probably the worse professional race that I’ve seen in my life
I feel sorry for the elite athletes who signed up for this series. Ir’s fine for B level North American runners however
-
126
-
Overall I think a lot of the reaction on here has been too negative, simply because it's the first meet and many things can easily change over time. It's also easy to take the things they've gotten right for granted and harp on the things they've gotten wrong.
It's important to remember the main problem GST is trying to solve: Non-championship track is effectively meaningless. This is reflected in many (not all) of the athletes' indifferent attitude towards the Diamond League. If you try to explain to a random sports fan why they should watch the DL, it would be hard to come up with an explanation other than "I think track is great." Yes, there are underlying storylines that inform what may happen at the big championship meets, but if a casual fan watches a DL meet, they'd instantly be able to tell that the stakes overall aren't that high unless there's a WR.
So is GST making progress toward solving that problem? While it's way early, I would say mostly yes. I think we are taking the strength of the fields for granted, and I feel like overall the athletes care about this meet more than the typical DL event. Even for fields that aren't good right now, like the women's 3k/5k, it's not hard to imagine strengthening the fields with bigger names and suddenly we're all a lot more excited about it.
Most of the issues I have with the meet -- Sydney not running against the other top 400 runners, the large time gaps between events, forcing the doubling format on all events when it doesn't totally make sense, spreading the event over three days when one or two is plenty -- should be fairly easy to address, especially going into year two. The strong emphasis on competition vs. time . . . we'll have to see. Personally, I'm not sure how much I like the overall format, but it's novel enough that I'm willing to give it a chance, and I do think it's interesting how much harder it is to predict what will happen in these races than normal.
The big wild card to me is the in-person attendance. I would guess that finding good venues for this was a major challenge and will remain a challenge next year. The question is how much this matters in the big picture.
68 -
Soy wrote:
Hagos running 12.36 on the DL circuit but getting outkicked by Dylan Jacobs and Cooper Teare in 14+ race shows how seriously the athletes are taking this.
As a football (soccer) fan I am getting Saudi league vibes from this. It's just a payday.
Eh, Hagos is just broken tactically. He’s running like an overexcited freshman at the end of these races.
81 -
Soy wrote:
Hagos running 12.36 on the DL circuit but getting outkicked by Dylan Jacobs and Cooper Teare in 14+ race shows how seriously the athletes are taking this.
As a football (soccer) fan I am getting Saudi league vibes from this. It's just a payday.
or maybe hagos is just dumb as hell considering this was a repeat of what he did during the OLYMPICS
50 -
THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:
Eh, Hagos is just broken tactically. He’s running like an overexcited freshman at the end of these races.
I love that this is actually a factor once again. No pacers forces someone like Hagos to actually have to get it right in order to win. Instead of just “follow blinky light, turn brain off” Hagos has to be aware enough to take action and push from the front. And if it’s windy out that still may not work. Keeps it interesting
61 -
Ill take it wrote:
I love that this is actually a factor once again. No pacers forces someone like Hagos to actually have to get it right in order to win. Instead of just “follow blinky light, turn brain off” Hagos has to be aware enough to take action and push from the front. And if it’s windy out that still may not work. Keeps it interesting
I agree. This is why Ngetich deserves respect. She killed off all but one runner
70 -
RojosFavoriteRunner wrote:
Overall I think a lot of the reaction on here has been too negative, simply because it's the first meet and many things can easily change over time. It's also easy to take the things they've gotten right for granted and harp on the things they've gotten wrong.
It's important to remember the main problem GST is trying to solve: Non-championship track is effectively meaningless. This is reflected in many (not all) of the athletes' indifferent attitude towards the Diamond League. If you try to explain to a random sports fan why they should watch the DL, it would be hard to come up with an explanation other than "I think track is great." Yes, there are underlying storylines that inform what may happen at the big championship meets, but if a casual fan watches a DL meet, they'd instantly be able to tell that the stakes overall aren't that high unless there's a WR.
So is GST making progress toward solving that problem? While it's way early, I would say mostly yes. I think we are taking the strength of the fields for granted, and I feel like overall the athletes care about this meet more than the typical DL event. Even for fields that aren't good right now, like the women's 3k/5k, it's not hard to imagine strengthening the fields with bigger names and suddenly we're all a lot more excited about it.
Most of the issues I have with the meet -- Sydney not running against the other top 400 runners, the large time gaps between events, forcing the doubling format on all events when it doesn't totally make sense, spreading the event over three days when one or two is plenty -- should be fairly easy to address, especially going into year two. The strong emphasis on competition vs. time . . . we'll have to see. Personally, I'm not sure how much I like the overall format, but it's novel enough that I'm willing to give it a chance, and I do think it's interesting how much harder it is to predict what will happen in these races than normal.
The big wild card to me is the in-person attendance. I would guess that finding good venues for this was a major challenge and will remain a challenge next year. The question is how much this matters in the big picture.
Honest question and I’m genuinely interested - what do you think they got/are getting right?
Also what is possibly changing over time? The only thing that saves this is a considerable rethink in the holistic formula and that starts with the 3 day “slam” and honestly goes right down to how the races are set up.
But the problem I see is that 1) Johnson is an extremely headstrong character who I struggle to believe can concede his original idea just kind of isn’t good and 2) the people he has surrounded himself with, aside from Kyle Merber, aren’t really track and field people who would even know the right direction to point him in.
So I’m genuinely not out to antagonize here but what are you seeing that gives you this sense of (much needed) optimism?
52 -
RojosFavoriteRunner wrote:
Overall I think a lot of the reaction on here has been too negative, simply because it's the first meet and many things can easily change over time. It's also easy to take the things they've gotten right for granted and harp on the things they've gotten wrong.
It's important to remember the main problem GST is trying to solve: Non-championship track is effectively meaningless. This is reflected in many (not all) of the athletes' indifferent attitude towards the Diamond League. If you try to explain to a random sports fan why they should watch the DL, it would be hard to come up with an explanation other than "I think track is great." Yes, there are underlying storylines that inform what may happen at the big championship meets, but if a casual fan watches a DL meet, they'd instantly be able to tell that the stakes overall aren't that high unless there's a WR.
So is GST making progress toward solving that problem? While it's way early, I would say mostly yes. I think we are taking the strength of the fields for granted, and I feel like overall the athletes care about this meet more than the typical DL event. Even for fields that aren't good right now, like the women's 3k/5k, it's not hard to imagine strengthening the fields with bigger names and suddenly we're all a lot more excited about it.
Most of the issues I have with the meet -- Sydney not running against the other top 400 runners, the large time gaps between events, forcing the doubling format on all events when it doesn't totally make sense, spreading the event over three days when one or two is plenty -- should be fairly easy to address, especially going into year two. The strong emphasis on competition vs. time . . . we'll have to see. Personally, I'm not sure how much I like the overall format, but it's novel enough that I'm willing to give it a chance, and I do think it's interesting how much harder it is to predict what will happen in these races than normal.
The big wild card to me is the in-person attendance. I would guess that finding good venues for this was a major challenge and will remain a challenge next year. The question is how much this matters in the big picture.
Good post.
I made this post in another thread. We try to only have one thread per topic but i guess we didn't merge them all.It's a shame we couldn't somehow do a series like this indoors where a small crowd seems large. You'd like to create the sensation of "sold-out, special" etc. You only have once chance to make a first impression.
Along those lines, I have zero idea why they pick Jamaica's national stadium and Franklin Field as 2 of their venues. WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY too big. Track and field is not popular in Philly. The Penn Relays just attracts a lot of Jamaicans and parents and traditionalists. The largest stadium for something like this should be Randall's Island orMiramar.
If you are going to hold it Kingston, pay whatever it costs to tarp off 80% for the seats. The entire back half of the stadium. Hell make it look like an ad for Jamaican tourism. Make it something that they can keep - "VisitJamaica.com" or something.
My son and recently went to watch the world's most popular athlete in Lionel Messi in Altanta. For some reason, the entire third deck was tarped off. I assume they could have sold out but they wanted a buzz and tickets going way above face. If Messi is tarping off seats, you should be as well.
I had been there for a long time before I realized the third deck was tarped off. I only noticed it because season ticket holder told me about it.PS. Having two unrabbited 3k/5ks is a bizarre decision. To be honest, I'm surprised since they got rid of field events, they didn't just not have long distance events as well. I'd have thought that was more likely than to have two unrabbitted 3k/5ks at every meet, but then I think they realize the pushback would have been too great. I'd have boycotted it. think the solution is you draw out of a hat right before the start yes or no, will this race be rabbitted. Have the rabbit warmed up. I also think NYC should be rabbitted every now and then. Maybe every other year. Just like Comrades has its up and down champions. NYC and Boston - you try to win one year with rabbit and one without.
16 -
THOUGHTSLEADER wrote:
Soy wrote:
Hagos running 12.36 on the DL circuit but getting outkicked by Dylan Jacobs and Cooper Teare in 14+ race shows how seriously the athletes are taking this.
As a football (soccer) fan I am getting Saudi league vibes from this. It's just a payday.
Eh, Hagos is just broken tactically. He’s running like an overexcited freshman at the end of these races.
Same sh-t different race with the Ethiopian “a-team”. I mean the blueprint for how sub 12.40 guys can run the wheels off non sub 12.40 guys is pretty simple and has been done multiple times before over history and yet HG basically does the worst thing he possibly could - the thing that most compromises his physiological advantages in these races. And you’d think that in a race that slow through 3000m, it’s not that much of an overall cost to lift tempo in the next mile (somewhere even in the 4.04-5 range). But I’ve seen enough with these guys when it comes to championship acumen - they suck.
50 -
rojo wrote:
RojosFavoriteRunner wrote:
Overall I think a lot of the reaction on here has been too negative, simply because it's the first meet and many things can easily change over time. It's also easy to take the things they've gotten right for granted and harp on the things they've gotten wrong.
It's important to remember the main problem GST is trying to solve: Non-championship track is effectively meaningless. This is reflected in many (not all) of the athletes' indifferent attitude towards the Diamond League. If you try to explain to a random sports fan why they should watch the DL, it would be hard to come up with an explanation other than "I think track is great." Yes, there are underlying storylines that inform what may happen at the big championship meets, but if a casual fan watches a DL meet, they'd instantly be able to tell that the stakes overall aren't that high unless there's a WR.
So is GST making progress toward solving that problem? While it's way early, I would say mostly yes. I think we are taking the strength of the fields for granted, and I feel like overall the athletes care about this meet more than the typical DL event. Even for fields that aren't good right now, like the women's 3k/5k, it's not hard to imagine strengthening the fields with bigger names and suddenly we're all a lot more excited about it.
Most of the issues I have with the meet -- Sydney not running against the other top 400 runners, the large time gaps between events, forcing the doubling format on all events when it doesn't totally make sense, spreading the event over three days when one or two is plenty -- should be fairly easy to address, especially going into year two. The strong emphasis on competition vs. time . . . we'll have to see. Personally, I'm not sure how much I like the overall format, but it's novel enough that I'm willing to give it a chance, and I do think it's interesting how much harder it is to predict what will happen in these races than normal.
The big wild card to me is the in-person attendance. I would guess that finding good venues for this was a major challenge and will remain a challenge next year. The question is how much this matters in the big picture.
Good post.
I made this post in another thread. We try to only have one thread per topic but i guess we didn't merge them all.
It's a shame we couldn't somehow do a series like this indoors where a small crowd seems large. You'd like to create the sensation of "sold-out, special" etc. You only have once chance to make a first impression.
Along those lines, I have zero idea why they pick Jamaica's national stadium and Franklin Field as 2 of their venues. WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY too big. Track and field is not popular in Philly. The Penn Relays just attracts a lot of Jamaicans and parents and traditionalists. The largest stadium for something like this should be Randall's Island orMiramar.
If you are going to hold it Kingston, pay whatever it costs to tarp off 80% for the seats. The entire back half of the stadium. Hell make it look like an ad for Jamaican tourism. Make it something that they can keep - "VisitJamaica.com" or something.
My son and recently went to watch the world's most popular athlete in Lionel Messi in Altanta. For some reason, the entire third deck was tarped off. I assume they could have sold out but they wanted a buzz and tickets going way above face. If Messi is tarping off seats, you should be as well.
I had been there for a long time before I realized the third deck was tarped off. I only noticed it because season ticket holder told me about it.
PS. Having two unrabbited 3k/5ks is a bizarre decision. To be honest, I'm surprised since they got rid of field events, they didn't just not have long distance events as well. I'd have thought that was more likely than to have two unrabbitted 3k/5ks at every meet, but then I think they realize the pushback would have been too great. I'd have boycotted it. think the solution is you draw out of a hat right before the start yes or no, will this race be rabbitted. Have the rabbit warmed up. I also think NYC should be rabbitted every now and then. Maybe every other year. Just like Comrades has its up and down champions. NYC and Boston - you try to win one year with rabbit and one without.
The damage done by their choice of venue(s) cannot be overstated. The visuals of an empty stadium will overwhelm even the best of races. What a blunder. Truly an unforced error.
80 -
My thoughts unsolicited…. It was a bit boring but I’m a true track fan so still watched the entire broadcast. The diamond league is still better. They needed to let fans into the stands and fill it up, even for free! That’s step one. With them throwing out an extra $100k to an overall winner seems like they are just throwing money at it. It’s an exceptional league for the athletes to clean up but zero attraction for spectators to show up versus watch on tv. Also, way to much time between races or just need better commentating in between to entertain the listeners like the do during football games. Make it fun! Breakdown the races in full detail and replays…. Something.
30 -
rojo wrote:
The largest stadium for something like this should be Randall's Island orMiramar.
If you are right about this (and you may very well be), then this has no hope of extending beyond whatever time the 30 million of startup capital affords them.
You can’t even have anything close to parity with DL (which you need to have for sponsorship desirability) if you are holding events in the equivalent of high school stadiums.
30 -
Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:
Same sh-t different race with the Ethiopian “a-team”. I mean the blueprint for how sub 12.40 guys can run the wheels off non sub 12.40 guys is pretty simple and has been done multiple times before over history and yet HG basically does the worst thing he possibly could - the thing that most compromises his physiological advantages in these races. And you’d think that in a race that slow through 3000m, it’s not that much of an overall cost to lift tempo in the next mile (somewhere even in the 4.04-5 range). But I’ve seen enough with these guys when it comes to championship acumen - they suck.
Aregawi’s the only one I remotely respect as a racer (no pun intended) on the men’s side at this point. It’s bizarre how varied it is too. Welteji and Barega knew what they’re doing overall, Hailu is tactically really good. Kejelcha/Tsegay/Haylom/Hagos/Yihune/Mehary train wrecks.
40 -
I don’t know if the US is the best place to launch the remainder competitions because we always have issues filling stadiums so it won’t be much different than Kingston. They need to bring star power and get people photographed attending to bring non track eyes to the event. People want to be where their favorite stars are.
10 -
Wise Old Man wrote:
rojo wrote:
Good post.
I made this post in another thread. We try to only have one thread per topic but i guess we didn't merge them all.
It's a shame we couldn't somehow do a series like this indoors where a small crowd seems large. You'd like to create the sensation of "sold-out, special" etc. You only have once chance to make a first impression.
Along those lines, I have zero idea why they pick Jamaica's national stadium and Franklin Field as 2 of their venues. WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY too big. Track and field is not popular in Philly. The Penn Relays just attracts a lot of Jamaicans and parents and traditionalists. The largest stadium for something like this should be Randall's Island orMiramar.
If you are going to hold it Kingston, pay whatever it costs to tarp off 80% for the seats. The entire back half of the stadium. Hell make it look like an ad for Jamaican tourism. Make it something that they can keep - "VisitJamaica.com" or something.
My son and recently went to watch the world's most popular athlete in Lionel Messi in Altanta. For some reason, the entire third deck was tarped off. I assume they could have sold out but they wanted a buzz and tickets going way above face. If Messi is tarping off seats, you should be as well.
I had been there for a long time before I realized the third deck was tarped off. I only noticed it because season ticket holder told me about it.
PS. Having two unrabbited 3k/5ks is a bizarre decision. To be honest, I'm surprised since they got rid of field events, they didn't just not have long distance events as well. I'd have thought that was more likely than to have two unrabbitted 3k/5ks at every meet, but then I think they realize the pushback would have been too great. I'd have boycotted it. think the solution is you draw out of a hat right before the start yes or no, will this race be rabbitted. Have the rabbit warmed up. I also think NYC should be rabbitted every now and then. Maybe every other year. Just like Comrades has its up and down champions. NYC and Boston - you try to win one year with rabbit and one without.
The damage done by their choice of venue(s) cannot be overstated. The visuals of an empty stadium will overwhelm even the best of races. What a blunder. Truly an unforced error.
Yes big mistake not to open with whatever you think is going to be your most well attended venue to get some atmosphere and buzz around the proceedings.
The total lack of crowds gave it a sterile Covid era feel.
The other issue was not displaying wind gauge readings so you could interpret the quality of a performance in absolute terms.
21 -
snowflakes wrote:
Empty stadium, boring distance races, missing the three biggest names in athletics right now (Ingebrigtsen, Lyles, Duplantis), Middle of the road production, does anybody seriously think this will succeed? Johnson's interpretation of track being only about racing is neglecting part of what makes middle-distance and distances races extremely comepelling (The times). Only good thing about this league is that these athletes get paid correctly.
Thoughts?
That's a lot of extrapolation from the first day of their first meet. No grace given.
30 -
RojosFavoriteRunner wrote:
Overall I think a lot of the reaction on here has been too negative, simply because it's the first meet and many things can easily change over time. It's also easy to take the things they've gotten right for granted and harp on the things they've gotten wrong.
It's important to remember the main problem GST is trying to solve: Non-championship track is effectively meaningless. This is reflected in many (not all) of the athletes' indifferent attitude towards the Diamond League. If you try to explain to a random sports fan why they should watch the DL, it would be hard to come up with an explanation other than "I think track is great." Yes, there are underlying storylines that inform what may happen at the big championship meets, but if a casual fan watches a DL meet, they'd instantly be able to tell that the stakes overall aren't that high unless there's a WR.
So is GST making progress toward solving that problem? While it's way early, I would say mostly yes. I think we are taking the strength of the fields for granted, and I feel like overall the athletes care about this meet more than the typical DL event. Even for fields that aren't good right now, like the women's 3k/5k, it's not hard to imagine strengthening the fields with bigger names and suddenly we're all a lot more excited about it.
Most of the issues I have with the meet -- Sydney not running against the other top 400 runners, the large time gaps between events, forcing the doubling format on all events when it doesn't totally make sense, spreading the event over three days when one or two is plenty -- should be fairly easy to address, especially going into year two. The strong emphasis on competition vs. time . . . we'll have to see. Personally, I'm not sure how much I like the overall format, but it's novel enough that I'm willing to give it a chance, and I do think it's interesting how much harder it is to predict what will happen in these races than normal.
The big wild card to me is the in-person attendance. I would guess that finding good venues for this was a major challenge and will remain a challenge next year. The question is how much this matters in the big picture.
There is nothing different with this league other than the better pay. It is just an American centric league. Just look at the list of racers and challengers on the website, majority are US athletes or runners training in the US. There is nothing wrong with establishing a league primarily in the US/Western hemisphere but to claim that it’s solving some non existent problem is funny.
51 -
Salvitore Stitchmo wrote:
Honest question and I’m genuinely interested - what do you think they got/are getting right?
Also what is possibly changing over time? The only thing that saves this is a considerable rethink in the holistic formula and that starts with the 3 day “slam” and honestly goes right down to how the races are set up.
But the problem I see is that 1) Johnson is an extremely headstrong character who I struggle to believe can concede his original idea just kind of isn’t good and 2) the people he has surrounded himself with, aside from Kyle Merber, aren’t really track and field people who would even know the right direction to point him in.
So I’m genuinely not out to antagonize here but what are you seeing that gives you this sense of (much needed) optimism?
They got the pre-event stuff right and the contracted athletes part right in my estimation. The lack of good graphics/splits/live results are kinda crazy. They use the word innovative, and an AWS style experience for TV would be great. But it was super minimalist instead. 3 days should be 2, there should only be one long race, and I don’t get Jamaica as a host. It probably should be indoors for at least one stop, no stadium over 10,000 seats. I also wouldn’t be married to 4 racers. There’re some undeserving racers and just go the challenger route if you have athletes who are not legit medal contenders.
40 -
Dammit, all you people do is complain. GST is trying something new. Because it’s not immediately perfect, a lot of you are condemning it right away. Dammit, do all of you enjoy other’s misfortune?
This is why track fans cannot have nice things. A lot of you just gripe because someone else had an idea that you didn’t.
I hope all of you are forced to watch running on Flotrack’s sorry a$$ platform.
34 -
I think it’s still too early to tell. MLS and the WNBA were unpopular, losing money, and very nearly failed. But now both are (relatively) popular and profitable. On the other hand, every few years there’s a new attempt at a spring football league that always seems to fold after one season. I could just as easily see Grand Slam going either way.
13
What People Are Talking About On LetsRun
No top threads at the moment. Check back soon.