Bolt ain't wrong. He starred in Commercials with Soccer Players, Did Interviews, and displayed strength with his 9.58 throughout the world. And If I'm not mistaken, held the 100m and 200m simultaneously. Something never done before. He knew how to put on a show and come off humble.
Lyles, Jakob, McLaughlin, etc... are very reserved and only display any cult following when they race and never when they're not.
I think the biggest issue is that its frustrating to watch athletics, even for a hardcore fan. Its hard to try to get into a distance race when you can only see 1/4 of it because they need to replay someone's pole vault for the 4th time in slow motion. Maybe a solution would be to separate the track and field events completely, make a 120m straight besides the 400m track where you can have the 100m and hurdle events while the distance races would be taking place, that way you can cut from one event to the next without any down time. Also cut out the amount of people competing so we don't have to sit through heats. Personally I would also love to see the multi's be their own thing completely because its not very interesting to see someone do an event when they are not world class at it.
tactical races have led to the above. stewie just doesn't have the same relative caliber pre had. agreed re heats, that is painful.
People outside of Track Fans do not know who McLaughlin, Mondo, Warholm, Jakob, Sifan are.
Track and Field has been amazing for Track fans to watch last three years, but it still is not popular mainstream. There are no Simone Biles or Serena Williams.
sydney is boring, barely races, and is toooooo serious (and runs one event)
Warholm..again....runs one niche event. sort of boring
Jakob seems like all he cares about is training and is too serious/focused. not much personality
sifan is just another east african running doped up fast times
Noah Lyles was sort of a bust at the olympics. bronze medal isnt going to make you a well known superstar. lets see if he can win in paris
Only person who has that "it" factor is someone like MU but she doesnt really race anymore is prefers to be a runway model (and why not, track is boring. shes already accomplished enough to be one of the GOATs)
You can’t be serious ??? Sifan isn’t east african and Mu is way more boring than Jakob. She never says bold things, is just always kind and quiet, doesn’t even get that excited about winning, is just always nervous and barely even races.
Don’t get me wrong she’s a great athlete, but I don’t see what she has over the others in terms of personality.
The last time I checked, Ethiopia is in East Africa.
As for me, I found track was boring when he was competing. He and Blake ducked each other except for global championships races. And that Bolt gimmick at end of race I found idiotic.
Add to that, that it's one of the few sports that actively punishes the people who try to watch it. I don't want to miss 3/4ths of the 5,000m, so that you can cut away to some pole vaulter adjusting her underpants.
No other major sport merely provides snippets of events, and tries to pass it off as its premier package.
Speak for yourself. Lady pole vaulters adjusting their underwear is peak track and field.