To save track, you are tasked with cutting it down to 12 events. Which events do you choose?

The 12 events would be:

100M 200M 400M 800M 1500M 110MH

4x100 4x400 4x400 Mixed Relay (Where teams are allowed to place their runners in any order they choose)

High jump, Javelin, Long jump

I wonder if the racing would be better with more odd distances. Would running more 150,300,500,600,1000,2k and the like rather than doing the same distance 5x+ over the same season.

100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 3000, 5000, 10000, 4x400, 4x100, LJ, HJ

The sport would be better off if we returned to weekday quad meets and Saturday Invitationals in HS. Take the best athletes to the Invitationals, and the "JV" kids to the weekday meets.

Ggggg

Caballo is horse

Cabello is hair

But you need the rest...for the rest

I concur. HS coaches are not allowed to coach, but officiate the meets, outside of weekend invitationals. Liability for these coaches is very high, not just because they are responsible for the event they are officiating, but also because they are responsible for the supervision of minors on their team, and become negligent through no fault of their own.

Never mind “saving track,” I’m doing what I want!

100 - Acceleration and top end speed.

500 - Speed endurance. Half a K. Spectators in the homestretch see the athletes sprint past twice. First 200 run in lanes before breaking on the backstretch, which would make for an intense battle (inevitably some collisions and DQs) and an added strategical element.

1K - One unit of the essentially universal measure of distance. Blend of speed and endurance required.

4K - 10 laps, a nice number. 10 minute barrier for the world’s best. Long enough to accentuate endurance, but not long enough to bore anyone but those with the very shortest attention spans. Strength-based 1500 runners, 5k/10k types and steeplers would all clash in this event.

It would be very rare for an athlete to win medals in 2 individual events in the same year (some female 1500 runners would generally have the best shot). The decreased number of events and specificity they would require would ensure that there’s never a comparatively weak event.

4x400 - 4x1 lap, a classic and intermediary between 100 and 500.

SMR (200-200-400-800) - Would give the short sprinters another chance for a medal. The 800 would include great clashes between 500m guys like Korir and 1K guys like Wightman, and give “‘tweeners” a chance to shine.

4xK - 10 laps, 4x standard universal unit. Obviously 1K specialists would excel but you’d see some 4k guys like Ingebrigtsen or El Guerrouj stepping down for a leg, and even the occasional strength based 500 guy stepping up. I know a lot of LetsRun types would love to see Cheruiyot/Kipsang/Wanyonyi/Kibet vs. Wightman/Kerr/Gourley/Giles for the gold medal.

300H - 110H frankly bores me personally but this would be a good battle ground for Holloway vs. Warholm, Amusan vs. McLaughlin.

So, there are opportunities to race 100-200-300h-400-500-800-1K-4K. Michael Johnson might never win an individual gold but he could make a name as the GOAT 200/400 guy in relays. Rudisha probably wouldn’t set 500 or 1K records but he could have the fastest 800 leg on record.

For field events, I’m keeping the 4 that seem most ubiquitous (at least at the U.S. scholastic level…)

HJ (Fosbury Flop banned) - Banning the Fosbury Flop for a rule that mandates going over the bar facing forward is somewhat Bad Wigins-esque and will be rejected by many, but I think the event’s more compelling to the Everyman if it’s less about perfecting that specific technique.

LJ - It’s jumping as far as you can. Great.

SP - Allows the beef eating brutes a place in the action.

Disc - Lots of you have cut this one, but you can’t think of the OG Olympics without picturing some sculpted (literally and figuratively) dude throwing the discus.

100 obviously, that's a given

400 really good race to watch especially since it's actually the length of the track, it's the longest that's essentially an all out sprint still

800 definitely underestimated, this race is the perfect mix of aerobic and anaerobic strength and probably my favorite ever race replays are from the 800

1500 - really I wish this was a 1600 because then it would be four laps exactly, 3 and 3 quarters is just weird and even without being a mile 1600 is still just better, but this length (1600 since I'm in high school) is my favorite to race and I think the most common question about times from non runners is probably "what's your mile time?" (again, why I think it should be a 1600 although we know that's not happening)

5000 we need this or the 10k and 10k is just too long to interest people

4x100

4x400 (see this relay is a 1600 total, not some random 1500m distance)

400h after all the wr's recently in this I'm definitely more interested in 400h than 100/110h

LJ

HJ

PV all three of these last events are a lot of fun to watch even if you don't know distances/heights

discus or shotput, probably discus because it looks cool to see the disk fly so freaking far (I have actually thrown both discus and shotput so don't think I'm throwing them under the bus, other events are just better or at least more fun for the audience)

Multi: 100, 400, 1500, 400h, LJ, HJ, PV, Discus

also an octathlon lol

Really I prefer to leave discus and shotput in, add javelin too. Take out the multi since nobody knows how it works who's not already a big track fan. And to make 15 total events which I think is a nice and actually good number, add in the 200 since that's a popular event. So if I could do 15 (already showed my twelve above since that's what the post asked for plus multi) the 15 would be: 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500 (actually the mile though since that's literally the most iconic event-think Roger Bannister), 5000, 4x100, 4x400, 400h, discus, shotput, high jump, long jump, pole vault, javelin. I think that hits all the spots pretty much perfectly.

On Track Events

1) 100
2) 110H
3) 400
4) 800
5) 1500
6) 5000
7) 4x100
8) 4x400
9) LJ
10) HJ
11) SP
12) Discus (safer than the Javelin in the stadium)

Off-Track Events

Marathon
ADD: XC/Off-road 10-12k event for M/F, plus a mixed M/F Ekiden at 20k distance on the same course (5 runner, 3M 2F)

The problem with the Javelin is that they keep changing the implement to keep the throwers from tossing it into the stands. If kept, it needs to move out of the stadium, AND it needs to go back to the original design. The goal being: who can throw it the farthest ... period, and not who can throw it and keep out of the stands. Maybe a 400 foot throw would be possible, and make it interesting for people to watch off-track.

dec + steeple and 10k