Garry Hill has some interesting ideas to make the field events more popular. Should the shot and long jump be run like the HJ?

HRE wrote:

Whatreallyhappened wrote:

Why would you think he understands the sport today? He only hears the voice of guys mostly over 70 years old. I think he should go gently into that good night and let others take over the voice of T&F. Who would that be? Probably not here .

How would you know whose voices Hill hears? Why would you think he doesn't understand the sport today aside from maybe not liking things he writes?

Garry Hill is the idiot who refused to cover the US astonishing breakthrough in the WC 10k when Rupp Abdi and Ritz all finished in the top 8 (I think). His reasoning was "they don't matter".

I'm surprised the guy is still alive.

Why not seed the field events and have a bracket? Seed by season best. Get rid of fouling in the jumps. With todays technology it would be easy to see the takeoff point and the landing point and calculate the distance. To those worried about a world record in an early round - it's still a world record, but records in first rounds don't mean you should stop the competition or be the defacto winner.

Head to Head wrote:

Why not seed the field events and have a bracket?

Many small countries' national champs, and many meets, do this. If there are more than 12 that want to compete in a one-day or one-weekend meet with no time for recovery and finals, you have 'A' and 'B' pools, and the results are merged. It's still theoretically possible for the person in the 'B' pool to win, although I never heard of it happening.

A few points:

1) The structure we have for field events in championship meets works now. I could see cutting down the field in the finals to 8 (after 3 jumps/throws) then 4 (after 5 jumps/throws), but all marks at any point in the finals should carry forward.

3) Some innovation in non-championship field event (both horizontal and vertical) scoring methods could reward different tactics and make the competitions more exciting . Some ideas:

Horizontal events (throws and jumps):

-A jumper’/thrower’s score is their three best jumps (of six) added together

-Give everyone three prelim jumps/throws, top 8 best marks advance. Pair them off and have two-jump/throw quarterfinals, semifinals, and finals (best mark advances, marks don’t carry forward to the next round)

Vertical events (HJ and PV):

-Give everyone ten total attempts—their score is their top three clearances added together

-Athletes all must enter at the same height, cannot pass a height until they’ve taken one attempt at it, but can pass a height after one miss, and are out after their third miss total—heights clearance wins.

4) Athletes who compete in the events should be asked their thoughts on some trial changes that won’t be in place until 2022 so they have some input on which go forward and time to prepare for them when they do.

5) The argument against any change that calls for not moving all marks forward because someone could set a world record/have the best mark and lose doesn’t hold water. This can already happen in prelims (both in running events and the horizontal field events), and it doesn’t ruin it for us. It just takes recalibration yourself toward head-to-head competition versus competing against the clock/bar/measuring tape (which many, including me, think o he sport could benefit from more of).

No. There are easy ways to measure both the shot and long jump each time. You can't say oh he cleared 7 foot in the high jump but he could of cleared 7'6" for 100%. Like you can in the shot and long jump. They usually get warmed up as they throw and jump anyway.

Plus it could go on forever.

What if we removed the concept of having to take off from a board in the long jump. It would be interesting if we established a 2-3 meter take off zone that was rigged to identify the take-off point for each athlete. This would eliminate fouls for the most part and lead to better performances as athletes wouldn’t have to consider the approach and could focus on speed to the board.

Clearly this would radically change the event but I think it could be interesting.

To be clear, I have never been anything close to a fan of Garry Hill. But it would be ridiculous to say that someone who has spent something like fifty years following a sport closely and writing about it doesn't understand the sport just because I disagree with things he writes.