Why do they have a 400m and 500m, and a 800m and 1000m? I also noticed they have a 4x800 in addition to the DMR. It seems unecessary, and probably watersdown the competition. Thoughts?
Why do they have a 400m and 500m, and a 800m and 1000m? I also noticed they have a 4x800 in addition to the DMR. It seems unecessary, and probably watersdown the competition. Thoughts?
For some odd reason, the schools in the east, south, and midwest makes a big deal out of indoor track and field, while schools in the west and pacific coast take it easy during the winter quarter.
Dingler wrote:
Why do they have a 400m and 500m, and a 800m and 1000m? I also noticed they have a 4x800 in addition to the DMR.
The Ivy League apparently does the same thing in its championship (at least on the men's side).
Perhaps it's to reward team depth? Bear in mind that the "standard" indoor-meet format includes both 400/500 and 800/1000--back to back, to prevent doubling.
I don't understand the 400/500. It seems like that is basically the same race. I think it is more common for 800 runners to go down to the 500 and mile runners to go down to the 1000.
I think it puts way too much focus on the middle distances. If you stretch the definition of middle distance a little you could have a guy run any of the following events: 400,500,800,1000,mile,3000,4x4,4x8, or dmr. Obviously no one is running all of those 8 events or the whole spectrum but it places a pretty high burden on teams in terms of having mid-d guys to cover everything. There are only 4 other running events (60,60h,200,5k), 3 jumps (long, triple, high), 2 throws (weight, shot), multi and vault.
So there are 8 middle distance events and 11 other events. Uconn, who won the indoor team title on the strength of guys like Michael Rutt, placed second to last in cross country (where Rutt was their 5th man). I think the conference wanted to prevent teams from winning the triple crown every year with just distance guys.