Why do we bother with indoor track for elite athletes?

Where would.....

Martin McGrady

Sam "The Fordham Flash" Perry

Lerone Clarke

Herb Washington.....greatest start ever! Like in supernatural.

.....be without indoor track? Hell, Houston McTear broke or tied seven indoor World Records in seven meets.

My point, exactly🤣

I like the tactical differences required indoors and I find championship racing quite exciting on smaller, harder to pass on tracks.

Exactly this. The men's NCAA 3000m final was such a captivating race with Kemboi, Herrera, and Nur battling for the lead. Even the Mile with Garcia Romo was fun.

And the 400m / 800m turn into a real battle for position. Why get pressed for fast times? They will come outdoors at the big beautiful 9-lane tracks. Sometimes a lil tactical, bumpy race is what I want, and thats indoors for me.

Agree that indoor seems a bit unnecessary for warmer climates.

-It's something different to do. Outdoor track season would be ridiculously long if they started it in December or January.

-It's more exciting. Running fast on a bouncy, steeply banked track is just plain fun. And big meets always have lots of fans packed in and it's much louder than an outdoor meet.

-The weather's always perfect. Even fair weather locations like California and Florida can get windy, rainy, and cool weather, especially in the winter months. You don't have to worry about peaking for a race and planning travel months ahead of time only for it to be 20mph winds and pouring rain.

-Many indoor tracks are just as fast as an outdoor track on a good weather day. For the mile, the BU track may even be faster.

Yeah, it can be fun, but in a novelty act/sideshow sort of way. Weird stuff, like 60 m races, and why the weird distance differences? Like why is the 600 or 1000 only run indoors? I mean, they could have run outside at this year’s NCAA no problem. It just seems like a silly artificial construct, and at the elite level, at least, most don’t care. It’s like pro golfers competing on a par 3 course.

Enough elites compete in World Indoors every other year to make it good viewing. Some prefer the double peak, some do better with the longer break. Though it is clear that most elites are not far off their peak performance at all times of year these days.

Would you prefer that everyone does cross-country from December-March? I admit that would be entertaining, especially if there was a short course option like 4k to pit the 1500/3000 guys against the 5000/10000 guys.

Cross long and short, roads (not marathon majors, but the other stuff) start in Nov and continue until late Feb/early March and then outdoor starts. Meaningful outdoor meets start in the late winter/early spring and build to a crescendo with major championships in the mid to late fall (Oct) and the start back to cross/roads.

You are not wrong

i seem to remember that at one point that John Walker attracted elites to go run against him (and other fast NZ runners) in the winter.

So there was a time when top elite runners did run in the Southern Hemisphere in the winter (50 years pre COVID)

Bad point it was his indoors exploits that made him somebody, same with the others.

The Fordham Flash Sam Perry

As a Fordham junior, Sam Perry tied the world indoor 60-yard record of 5.9 seconds in the 1965 Millrose Games. He has held the school's 100-yard record of 9.4 seconds since 1963, and won the Terence J. O'Donnell Memorial Trophy in 1965. He was twice national A.A.U. indoor champion at 60 yards.

Twice USA indoor 60 champ

Who can forget this winning streak?

Hayes Jones was born in Starkville, Mississippi and moved to Pontiac, Michigan where he won the Class A state title in the long jump (1956) at Pontiac High School. He went on to attend Eastern Michigan University and won the high hurdles and low hurdles doubles at the national championships as a sophomore in 1958. Jones captured nine AAU hurdles titles over a six-year period. Indoors, he logged 55 straight wins and set a world indoor best of 6.8 for 60 yards in 1962. While in college, he also ran impressively in both the 100 and 220 and was a member of a world record setting 4x100m relay team. As a member of the U.S. Track and Field team, Jones won the bronze medal in the 110-meter hurdles at the 1960 Rome Olympics and came back and won the gold medal in the same event in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Hayes Jones was inducted into Eastern Michigan’s E-Club Athletic Hall of Fame in 1977, the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1976 was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1969.

It’s also crazy we host some of the most important outdoor meets when it might be 38/100 degrees outside. Why don’t we aim for major championships to be held in the mid fall? We could have early spring peak and good weather for WRs, and late fall good weather for global medals, and everybody is happy!!

Love it!!

Easy: it's another opportunity for World Athletics to sell rights for sponsorship and advertising. Also, athletes can get sponsor bonuses by making teams for and competing at World Indoors or setting records indoors. They can also work on their fitness, racing skill and tactics.

I mean, I do hear what you're saying and agree. I'd much rather see an outdoor track relays series/champs held in the tropics or a world champs ekiden this time of year. Indoors individual events just aren't interesting when at least a quarter (if not far more) of the top domestic and international athletes give it a pass.

NBC Sports does not want the World Championships to go head-to-head against the MLB play-off.

Sad that this globally obscure, niche sport (baseball, not track😉) would lead to holding the WCs under barely bearable conditions. A meet in Eugene in Oct would be glorious. Of course, then there’s also Oregon football and the NFL. Ok, run the 10, 000 on a melting track, or at the last minute, switch it to 10 pm, so nobody knows when it’s happening and everybody is asleep. Ahh, to be the fan of a sport that nobody cares about…..sucks!!

The indoor Sunkist meet in Los Angeles used to be a thing. Indoor track can be fun to watch and it's easier to fill an indoor-track-sized venue.