A 9 day Worlds or Olympics track and field meet is fine since it's always held in a big impressive city. When meets are held in a podunk piss hole town then it should be a 2 day finals maximum.
A 9 day Worlds or Olympics track and field meet is fine since it's always held in a big impressive city. When meets are held in a podunk piss hole town then it should be a 2 day finals maximum.
Tennis Grand Slams take two weeks. No one seems to mind.
I was at the WJC in Eugene on thursday night and it was absolutely fantastic. The only problem was knowing where to look because so much was going on at once. MASSIVE Polish dude launching the shot out of the sector (literally) while his team-mates get the whole stadium clapping in rhythm (the Dutch were good at this too!), 5 or 6 girls breaking their national records in the vault (some doing it 2 or 3 times), Mary Cain making the place explode on the last lap, Henriksdottir taking the (women's) 800 out in 56 and dying a painful death, Chinese guy *freaking out* after a PR in the LJ until the announcer laughs and says 'welcome to Hayward!', every single guy in the 1500 going out in 12 flat for the first 100, 12.99 WJR in the hurdles followed by the guy falling to the ground literally speechless with joy during his interview and getting a round of applause.
Best night of track I ever watched in almost 40 years of meets.
Notable things that they did well:
1. The meet moves fast. No long pauses with nothing going on.
2. Great electronic boards that let you follow the field events even if you are (like me) mainly knowledgeable about the track events. Who is jumping/throwing, what height/distance, which attempt, what place are they in.
3. Good announcing, with someone who can recognize the athletes and actually pays attention to moves in the pack, etc. Someone from TV should hire this guy or at least follow the model of actually covering the race rather than blithering about one or two people in it while not apparently even watching.
4. Fantastic officials running the meet... everyone doing their job quickly and well.
5. Polite, friendly and well-informed people working the gates, street crossings, stands, etc.
And of course, having 1000 fired up athletes wandering around helps keep the atmosphere good.
Actually, track and field is unpopular because between Olympic Games, very few people know it's even going on
Circular statement.
Four days should be the absolute maximum. We need to see more of stars like Jordan Hasay and the like.