IOC in Talks, Pondering to Remove 10k/200m from Olympics

Sorry if I sound ignorant here, but its to my understanding that no one gives a fvck about any race walk events. I was honestly confused when I heard that event even existed. My grandma and her friends speed walk quite a bit in her neighborhood, and that sums up the only people I know that competitively walk around. Whereas, the 10,000 meter is in my opinion one of the best distance races in the olympics besides the marathon and 5K. I think it would be brilliant to ditch the 10K on the track to bring in a 10K cross country race. That would get the attention of every cross country runner worldwide.

As far as shot put, triple jump, and 200m, I honestly think the 200 is a very important event, as it's what I understand to be the true test of sprint. some would argue that's the 100, but the 200 is short enough so that athletes won't be fatigued while running it and have more time to build up speed, whereas the 100 is just too short.

The shotput is a total classic. I don't shotput, nor do I watch it, but to get rid of shot put for surfing? SURFING? Come on, that's BS. I think it would be neat to have surfing and karate in the olympics, but that doesn't mean you push out the classics. Get rid of race-walks and some other irrelevant event that no ones ever heard of. How their first options were the events that USAIN BOLT and MO FARAH run is completely beyond me, but then again Worlds is also going to be in Doha so it's become clear that these head track and field administrations could give a damn about the athletes and fans.

Just my 2 cents.

1 boundary that should never be crossed; Replacing an event measured with a stopwatch/tape measure with a biased-judged event. If they want to add surfing, fine. Just take out some other ridiculous judged sport, say, synchronized swimming/diving etc... Just don't take away those hot Brazilian babes in beach volleyball. Surfing medals will break down much like swimming except I don't think the steroids will have much of an impact. Australia, United States and Polynesian countries dominating. Those who judge will come from countries that have a great history in the sport therefore biasing the scoring. I don't see anyone from land locked countries participating much or judging even less.

I bet you don't know any cricket players either, yet it's one of the most popular sports in the world. The Olympics is a WORLD competition, not a competition for your bubble.

It's the best distance race besides every other distance race?

Doesn't that make it the WORST distance race in the Olympics?

Read the thread before re-hashing the same dumb ideas. Cross country is NEVER coming back to the Olympics.

It wasn't in the Olympics in the 80's when World XC was popular. The fact that A-list guys don't even bother show up to World XC anymore doesn't sell it.

You know nothing about sprinting. 100 has plenty of time to reach top speed.

Overall your post was probably in the top 10 dumbest posts of the week. Nothing about it was original, but you managed to take several idiotic ideas already presented and put them in one post. Take your two cents and go back to Wrong Moron City where maybe someone will care.

They won't do it before Bolt retires. Ratings spike when he is on the track.

gwalkerruns wrote:

They won't do it before Bolt retires. Ratings spike when he is on the track.

Nothing from these talks would affect 2016.

I was wondering if the 10,000/200 had a high redundancy rate with other events. From the US 2004 team only Gatlin and Browne doubled. 2008 Dix, Muna Lee, Kara and Shalane doubled up. 2012 Rupp, Jeter and Felix doubled. I thought there might be more before I looked, didn't look for any other countries.

All these international bodies are primarily run by people from countries where you pork livestock and eat dirt. It should come as no surprise that they make stupid decisions.

Why get rid of anything? Does it cost that much to run off the 10k and 200?

Just add surfing. And if they do, they should make it big wave surfing as that is the only surfing people want to watch.

Texas HS Coach wrote:

Why get rid of anything?

Read the article and you'll find out! Ever thought about that?

The 200 meters produced Johnson winning by a country mile in Atlanta. How many sprint doubles by legends, also in the past it has produced mild upsets like Kenteris(drug fueled but fun to watch). The 10K is a classic event if they are to get rid of an event it should be the 20K race walk, does anybody but race walkers care if they only have the 50K event?

All these events have such history in the Olympics it is almost unfathomable.

On the other hand, I've never heard of a surfing drug scandal.

Surfing would be impossible to implement. Most countries in the world don't even have ridable waves. Summer is the worst season for surfing, no decent swells. Decent waves are fickle. Right now Pipeline, final event in world champs, is on in Hawaii. The comp has a 20 day window to wait for decent waves, and it's held on the North Shore (best surfing stretch of beaches in the world).

If surfing was in the Olympics, it would be an artificial waterpark-type ride that the Chinese would dominate and ruin.

TommyC wrote:

Surfing would be impossible to implement. Most countries in the world don't even have ridable waves. Summer is the worst season for surfing, no decent swells. Decent waves are fickle. Right now Pipeline, final event in world champs, is on in Hawaii. The comp has a 20 day window to wait for decent waves, and it's held on the North Shore (best surfing stretch of beaches in the world).

Yeah, even those competitions in California (Huntington beach, etc) you see on TV have these lame 2-foot waves most of the time. It's super boring to watch and dominated by 100lb weaklings doing spins. You can't predict the swell and surfing is very condition specific.

So Olympics would now need to be located on the coast? No Olympics for landlocked cities anymore?

If they do a "wave rider" cruise ship thing, it would be super lame and boring. What's the point? What are they thinking even considering surfing?

If they want to get rid of events, get rid of the equestrian and the sailing.

luv2run wrote:

As for the argument about reducing weight classes, the Olympics have fewer weight classes than the world championships in those same events. I guess you just want the fastest runners so if a woman cannot run sub10 in the 100 she should not be there. Just have 1 competition and if the women cannot cut it, so be it. Right?

Weight classes dilute the competition and prevent it from being a battle of the best which is what the world's greatest sporting event should be about. If the IOC wants to reduce the numbers of athletes going to the games then they must first streamline the sports with meaningless competitions such as those with weight classes (eg rowing) or those with different styles of going from A to B as fast possible (eg swimming). To help you understand why so many swimming events must be axed before the IOC even thinks about altering the track and field program, you have to to imagine if track and field had 100m or 200m races where competitors were obliged to wave their arms around their head. These events would for sure be in line to be axed if the IOC was thinking about reducing numbers of athletes going to the Games.

If the IOC further need to limit the numbers of competitors going to the Olympics in the long-term future, then removing the women's category (they could move the women's category to the special Olympics) and making all events simply "open" would not be unreasonable, but they are not at that stage and the other sports besides track and field needing sorting out first.

Actually, I do follow cricket quite a bit. I follow a wide range of world athletics, but like I said, its to my understanding that race-walks are the most unpopular.

It's the best distance race besides every other distance race?

Doesn't that make it the WORST distance race in the Olympics?

No, there's these races called the 1500, 800, and 3000 steeple. You should check them out next time the Olympics roll around jackass.

And as for the XC, of course they don't show up to world xc, but if this were the Olympics, and the 10,000 were removed and their only option besides the 5,000 was an XC 10k, I'm pretty confident the 5,000 runners would also run the XC race as they currently double for the 10K on the track.

Now get back to your hobby jogging.

The 200 has/is

1. been in every single modern olympics since the beginning.

2. the second most popular track and field event besides the 100m

3. Has seen legendary performances that are widely popular in all of sports history (Michael Johnson, Bolt, Blake, etc)

4. the history of this distance goes back thousands of years. It is close to the original sprint distance in the Ancient Olympic Games, the stadion. It was the very first competition at the ancient games and was the only competition from 776BC to 724BC. The 200m is technically the "most olympic" of all the olympic events.

I can't see anything to gain from taking the 200 out. They would lose far more money, fans, respect and dignity than they would gain. The backlash from it would be enormous

OfficialMCC wrote:

The 200 has/is

1. been in every single modern olympics since the beginning.

2. the second most popular track and field event besides the 100m

3. Has seen legendary performances that are widely popular in all of sports history (Michael Johnson, Bolt, Blake, etc)

4. the history of this distance goes back thousands of years. It is close to the original sprint distance in the Ancient Olympic Games, the stadion. It was the very first competition at the ancient games and was the only competition from 776BC to 724BC. The 200m is technically the "most olympic" of all the olympic events.

I can't see anything to gain from taking the 200 out. They would lose far more money, fans, respect and dignity than they would gain. The backlash from it would be enormous

Well lucky for you it's been 4+ years and the 200 hasn't been thrown out yet!

1. 100m

2.400m

3.4x100 relay

4. 1500

5. High Jump

remove all throwing events .And jumping events that require a pole, And any running event so long where you need a commercial break in between , so people don't change

channels.

modern track has to many boring events , i agree with ion , surfing is more interesting than watching a 10k or marathon or race walking.