Kyle Merber — better announcer than runner?

Agreed he was great. If him and Chris Chavez did an alternative audio feed of the Olympic Trials I'd turn that on instead.

Alexi Santana wrote:

Agreed he was great. If him and Chris Chavez did an alternative audio feed of the Olympic Trials I'd turn that on instead.

Yes, it was great, a true fan’s dream to listen to people who knew exactly what they were talking about, didn’t say stupid stuff, are smart, and talented at communicating and broadcasting. Loved it.

Mennonite wrote:

Merber has legitimate talent in announcing — he has good rhythm, is knowledgeable, can still calculate splits quickly like a runner should be able to, and mixes in the right amount of personal anecdotes and jokes.

I just watched almost the entire meet because of him. A+

Hopefully national broadcasts actually give him a shot at some point.

It’s the pooka shell necklace, ear gauges, and headband that creates that kind of magic.

track announcers should be sourced straight from dyestat

Not as good as Howard Cosell, Dandy Don Meredith, and Erin Andrews.

The ONLY part of the broadcast I watched was the last 3.5 laps of the top two women in the 10000m and it was an epic failure by the announcers. You say he can calculate splits in his head BUT that was the failure. With 3 laps to go one announcer says something like they might just dip under 34 which was obviously not correct and the other guy says nothing to correct him. Eventually he realizes how far off he was but of course it didn’t impact me because I actually can do those calculations in my head. Otherwise he may have been fine though. I suppose the bar is not real high.

Jimmbo wrote:

Otherwise he may have been fine though. I suppose the bar is not real high.

Between this and Centro's 24k loss to kickstart the pandemic I'd say the millennial generation is doomed.

That was a mistake, however more so an adding mistaken rather than being clueless. Chavez is just a yes man and immediately agreed, even though it was abundantly clear both were wrong.

The bar is indeed very low, but you also caught one mistake in a long broadcast that by Merber was otherwise very good.

Merber was great.

Yes, if you tuned in only to the Women's 10,000m then that's where the broadcast and commentary fell apart. I think they were starting to get tired and lose focus from the long day. Got too insecure, congratulating themselves on what value they were bringing to the sport, etc.

Otherwise, it was a great broadcast. Merber brings that race intelligence (although he repeated a lot of stories from LetsRun, including the recent Ben True interview insight on shoes/spikes) like Tony Romo on an NFL broadcast.

I liked it.. maybe only other peeve is that their voices are too similar (Merber and Chavez) so sometimes hard to tell who's talking.

Oh my favorite moment of the night, Merber during the W 10,000m "I always describe the 10k as an orchestrated symphony.." or something like that after they were making fun of the "go to your local track" analogy... otherwise solid.