Olympics, WC, USAs. The worst part of all these events are the rounds. The second worst thing is country entry limits, but that’s a rant for another day.
HS invitationals and even the HS national championships is the best format for a meet.
Seed all the runners and run the heats in reverse order. There is more drama, less time, and the best of the best still win, but in more impressive races.
I’ll die on this hill. Heats are the #1 thing hurting the sport’s popularity with fans.
You need rounds to whittle the field down to one race. But you could do all of the rounds over four days early in the meet. Take a couple days off. Then have two days of finals only races. Those two days would be packed and very exciting.
Olympics, WC, USAs. The worst part of all these events are the rounds. The second worst thing is country entry limits, but that’s a rant for another day.
HS invitationals and even the HS national championships is the best format for a meet.
Seed all the runners and run the heats in reverse order. There is more drama, less time, and the best of the best still win, but in more impressive races.
I’ll die on this hill. Heats are the #1 thing hurting the sport’s popularity with fans.
What I don't see the need for is the semi final and the final of the 100M on the same day an hour our two apart.
What I don't see the need for is the semi final and the final of the 100M on the same day an hour our two apart.
I could be convinced to go this far as well. I’m just saying that most Saturday track meets you go to in any town in America have a much better format than professional championships. Those meets usually have one round of 100m before the final layer on, but it probably is not necessary.
I mean I think USAs should go down to semi and final for 800 to 5k. Three rounds for sprints. You could still have as many people entered just top 2 or whatever advancing per heat. Little to no time qualifiers.
I mean I think USAs should go down to semi and final for 800 to 5k. Three rounds for sprints. You could still have as many people entered just top 2 or whatever advancing per heat. Little to no time qualifiers.
There is no reason to have rounds for 800-5000. You can run 12 guys in an 800 final no problem, and if you seed everyone by time, you will have the three fastest guys in the fastest heat.
not only are semis unnecessary for creating the correct finals field, they also run the risk of having some guys running 1:42 to make the finals and some others running 1:46.
You need rounds to whittle the field down to one race.
No you don’t. Thats what 4 months of regular season racing is for.
Ok
But you can’t just list the 8 fastest times and that’s the final.
You need a regular season schedule where they have to win head-head matchups to advance eventually to the Olympic final. That would prevent them from ducking each other.
There are events where a format of many separate runnings like you're suggesting is a practical necessity, like long track speed skating, or where it's the very point of the event in and of itself, like with time trials in cycling. For anything else I think it's ridiculous. You may think you hate rounds in track, but you'll hate it even more when you see the fast heat of the 5,000, full of dudes sprinting for the line aiming for glory and, oh, oops, actually, the gold medalist is some guy who ran two hours ago.
You may think you hate rounds in track, but you'll hate it even more when you see the fast heat of the 5,000, full of dudes sprinting for the line aiming for glory and, oh, oops, actually, the gold medalist is some guy who ran two hours ago.
Why would I hate that? I seriously doubt the B heat of the championship race would be faster than 13:10. And even if it were, there should be 16 faster guys in the A race that are ready to run faster than that.
No you don’t. Thats what 4 months of regular season racing is for.
Ok
But you can’t just list the 8 fastest times and that’s the final.
You need a regular season schedule where they have to win head-head matchups to advance eventually to the Olympic final. That would prevent them from ducking each other.
If you’re qualifying by time, you don’t need to worry about ducking. If a guy runs 1:41 or 3:27 or 12:40, he should be in the final whether he beat some other guys in another race or not.