They are often poorly promoted, poorly attended, and often in out-of-the-way places. I wish that USATF would come up with something better and stage their own road championships in places like Chicago, LA, Atlanta, etc. for ease of access and cheaper travel costs.
This sounds to me like USATF isn't getting many bids (they charge exorbitant fees and sanctioning costs) and rather than make changes, they just want to kill the whole thing. Max and his crew are very uncreative, lazy, and greedy.
This. The circuit has dwindled into irrelevance, overall. The increased cost:benefit ratio for bidders has reduced interest from races to participate. And it becomes expensive to racers when they aren't at or close to major airports. Better to scrap it if you aren't going to budget to do better at supporting the structure. It did help fulfill USATF's mission of Olympic development, but it's also been spread incredibly thin with so many races of similar duration with 5K, 6K, 8K, 10K, 10 mile, 20K, half-marathon, 25K championship races. It looks like 20K and 25K are out this year, though per Hanson's comment maybe for lack of interest/bids. It would be better to just streamline it to 5K, 10K, 15K, half-marathon, 30K or something like that and really support the events to make it enticing to bidders. Ultimately, the circuit hasn't shown great evidence of developing our Olympic marathoners. How often have Rupp or Seidel shown up to these races? About the only possible benefit is they've enabled a bunch of non-Olympians to stay in the sport a few years longer with the prospect of US-only prize purses at these races, but it's an administrative cost (not covered by bid fees?) out of USATF's annual budget, not the prize money. I don't think it's a terrible idea, there was more bang-for-the-buck in terms of developing Olympic medalists with support for the Team USA groups of the '00s. We have more high level women performers in the marathon than we did in Deena's time, but Seidel is the only one to have shown real championship mettle and her future prospects are anything but certain. We have just as many groups now giving us some almost-podium runners on the track, but marathon development has diminished greatly along with expectations.
The 20k has been around since 1996, and is not out.
Would YOU rather have a $100K appearance fee and DNF, or win $15K for championship?
The could have small appearance fees with some credential based formula. I get that the biggest stars may not go for it but we could also help develop more talent by giving these second tier runners a chance to make some money.
Would YOU rather have a $100K appearance fee and DNF, or win $15K for championship?
Right, and if you can't get a comp entry, flight and/or hotel room at Chicago, NYC, or Boston under their generous programs for US runners then why the hell should anyone give an appearance fee for you to race at the US marathon championship at CIM or Houston? To wit, it seems entirely unlikely that Droddy or Futsum were turning down $100K or even $20K offers from other races to be at CIM. There's a significant gap between the top runners at US champs in December at CIM and even the 5th-10th invited international runners at Houston let alone at WMM races. On the other hand, if you aren't getting mid to high five figure appearance fee offers then going out and winning CIM is a good way to build your resume to get to that level in the sport. Tangentially, it is funny that NAZ says today Futsum's spring marathon is TBA after Boston, London, and Tokyo fields have been released so that means... Grandma's? Possibly Rotterdam?
Several years ago, my RRCA club, Montgomery County Road Runners Club (Maryland) hosted the USATF XC Championship at a large local park. Our organization poured a huge volunteer effort into making this a superb event. USATF was quite efficient in ordering us to pay for the non-trivial infrastructure and operational costs. We had only vague written commitments from USATF that it would "raise funds to defray the event costs via cash sponsorships". So, how much did USATF contribute? Zero. Our club was out over $20,000 and USATF apparently never felt the need to reimburse us for anything.
IMHO, USATF is a poorly-managed organization that still festers due to the reliance of a few incredibly highly compensated employees on the considerable work of thousands of volunteers. Something has to change.
Several years ago, my RRCA club, Montgomery County Road Runners Club (Maryland) hosted the USATF XC Championship at a large local park. Our organization poured a huge volunteer effort into making this a superb event. USATF was quite efficient in ordering us to pay for the non-trivial infrastructure and operational costs. We had only vague written commitments from USATF that it would "raise funds to defray the event costs via cash sponsorships". So, how much did USATF contribute? Zero. Our club was out over $20,000 and USATF apparently never felt the need to reimburse us for anything.
IMHO, USATF is a poorly-managed organization that still festers due to the reliance of a few incredibly highly compensated employees on the considerable work of thousands of volunteers. Something has to change.
IMHO, the main problem here is that incentives for a respected, prestigious national championship system is that the "ruling body" is a corrupt and barely competent organization that is staffed by highly-compensated employees who rely on the volunteer labor of thousands of people across the United States. Unless we can reconstitute USATF finances to bring Siegel's absurd greed to ground and to modestly compensate some of the most important volunteers - the dedicated experts of the Road Running Technical Committee, for instance - I think USATF will find itself on a course to irrelevance. It may eventually be replaced by World Athletics, which can be a potential improvement.
Or else athletes and unpaid experts in conducting these events will decline to participate. It seems to me that many athletes would do better competing in countries in which World Athletics is the governing body.
They are often poorly promoted, poorly attended, and often in out-of-the-way places. I wish that USATF would come up with something better and stage their own road championships in places like Chicago, LA, Atlanta, etc. for ease of access and cheaper travel costs.
This sounds to me like USATF isn't getting many bids (they charge exorbitant fees and sanctioning costs) and rather than make changes, they just want to kill the whole thing. Max and his crew are very uncreative, lazy, and greedy.
As an athlete who has raced in many many of these races over a span of many years I can say this would be pretty terrible if they got rid of these races. They bring a large chunk of top national distance runners together several times throughout the year. If anything, I could see them dropping the mile and the 5k version since those types of runners can run on the track. But for 10k to marathon these races are great. For top distance runners who don't want to run on the track for the limited 5k/10k opportunities these races provide consistent racing opportunities against good competition. If these races were eliminated you'd rarely see top American distance runners going head to head. I get that people don't consider these as the top races since people like Grant Fisher or Joe Klecker aren't running them, but that's because they're still doing the track circuit of 3k-10k races with the focus of USATF outdoor champs to go to worlds and olympics. But there is a whole crew of athletes beyond that who are the current or near future marathon crowd and these road races are very important to developing those athletes. Conner Mantz is one of the biggest current runners in this crowd. He's run one marathon, many more to come. These USATF road races are perfect preparation races to sprinkle in during marathon builds.
Several years ago, my RRCA club, Montgomery County Road Runners Club (Maryland) hosted the USATF XC Championship at a large local park. Our organization poured a huge volunteer effort into making this a superb event. USATF was quite efficient in ordering us to pay for the non-trivial infrastructure and operational costs. We had only vague written commitments from USATF that it would "raise funds to defray the event costs via cash sponsorships". So, how much did USATF contribute? Zero. Our club was out over $20,000 and USATF apparently never felt the need to reimburse us for anything.
IMHO, USATF is a poorly-managed organization that still festers due to the reliance of a few incredibly highly compensated employees on the considerable work of thousands of volunteers. Something has to change.
Or else what??
The something that has to change is for us, the participants in the sport, to tell USATF to go jump in a lake.
"We're not hosting your championship."
"We're not running in your events."
"We're not joining your organization."
"We're not using you to certify our courses."
As hobby runners/joggers (which 99.99% of all runners are), we do not need USATF. At all. I'm running a race this Saturday. I don't know if the course is certified, or if the event is sanctioned, and I don't care. (What in the world does a "sanctioned" race mean, anyway?)
The something that has to change is for us, the participants in the sport, to tell USATF to go jump in a lake.
"We're not hosting your championship."
"We're not running in your events."
"We're not joining your organization."
"We're not using you to certify our courses."
As hobby runners/joggers (which 99.99% of all runners are), we do not need USATF. At all. I'm running a race this Saturday. I don't know if the course is certified, or if the event is sanctioned, and I don't care. (What in the world does a "sanctioned" race mean, anyway?)
This. I decided last year - after the annual USATF mega-f*** up that I'm not going to join up again or do their official races or work with them at all. The organization is actively holding the sport of distance running back, and I can't be involved with it.
Our club looked into putting on a USATF masters championship race. When we started reading the fine print, we figured out that we would lose our assess if we did this.
Or else athletes and unpaid experts in conducting these events will decline to participate. It seems to me that many athletes would do better competing in countries in which World Athletics is the governing body.
This same argument has been made since at least the '90s ad nauseam. In which "countries" is WA "the governing body"? WA is made up of constituent countries' charter NGBs. UKA, AK, USATF, et cetera, et cetera. USATF was preceded by TAC (really just a name change) and AAU prior to that. WA is not going to come in and start selecting US Olympic and World Champs teams on the track, etc. Also, RRCA has nothing to do with USATF and vice versa.
One thing to remember, this is not a true professional sport. The athletes have largely left it up to amateur sports organizations to stage championships and other major events. The athletes are chiefly unaffiliated free agents, they aren't issues a pro card by any professional sports entity, have no unified voice, and have no requirements for a competitive schedule.
The something that has to change is for us, the participants in the sport, to tell USATF to go jump in a lake.
"We're not hosting your championship."
"We're not running in your events."
"We're not joining your organization."
"We're not using you to certify our courses."
As hobby runners/joggers (which 99.99% of all runners are), we do not need USATF. At all. I'm running a race this Saturday. I don't know if the course is certified, or if the event is sanctioned, and I don't care. (What in the world does a "sanctioned" race mean, anyway?)
I'm all for it, a unified mass walk-out of membership. It's a nice dream.
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