RIP All-Athletics has ceased to exist!!!!!!!!!!

Despite a large participation base track athletes and fans are cheap and first Track and Field News annonces its no longer printing paper editions and when the current leadership passes on I suspect that will lead to the end of TFN or at least a much less comprehensive website and production. All-A is another labor of love and now gone. Already running mags have bit the dust. Lets run needs to fill the void but to do so needs to go from skeleton website to full blown high end site but I suspect they are not interested or unable to attract enough capital or don't feel the biz plan would pencil out monetarily.

Athletics weekly also died

Got my copy of Athletics Weekly last week so its still going strong ;-)

Ken Young, operator of the ARRS database, also passed away on Saturday. The site is still up but I guess it's only a matter of time.

I noticed that alltime-athletics.com hasn't been updated since September either. Tough times.

This is the tip of the iceberg. We are seeing this in all venues, and it is the sign of things to come. Current and future generations are self-fulfilled, with the smart phones giving them all the personal satisfaction they desire. Why go outside and play when you can sit on your comfy couch and play a game on your phone? Why parent a kid when you can put him/her in front of a Gameboy and know they will sit there eating chips , playing halo for 5 hours? The paper newspapers, track and field, SI, even Playboy, are all slowly, (some faster than others), away.

In 25 years, the cars will be driving themselves , while the self-interested people of society have no interest in anything outside of self satisfaction. Gone will be the days of actual playgrounds. Parks will become overgrown from lack of use, and baseball and football games will be watched with drones from obese viewers miles away on their couches.

I'm glad I grew up when I did.

It looks like a lot of the old guard mags and sites are dying. But some new ones have popped up.

Citius is pretty good. Fittish from deadspin is ok. Outside online has a good piece about running maybe once a week.

I think the move is away from “fan” publications that just break down races and the like. The shift seems to be more “this is what happened in the race and how can you apply it to your own running”.

This is actually an opportunity for LR. T&F fandom could make a resurgence in the next few years. If LR commits, they will be very well placed as the go to website.

survey says wrote:

Ken Young, operator of the ARRS database, also passed away on Saturday. The site is still up but I guess it's only a matter of time.

I noticed that alltime-athletics.com hasn't been updated since September either. Tough times.

Sad news about Ken. Here is an article on Ken Young by Amby Burfoot from a couple of years ago:

Legal Raccoon wrote:

It looks like a lot of the old guard mags and sites are dying. But some new ones have popped up.

Citius is pretty good. Fittish from deadspin is ok. Outside online has a good piece about running maybe once a week.

I think the move is away from “fan” publications that just break down races and the like. The shift seems to be more “this is what happened in the race and how can you apply it to your own running”.

This is actually an opportunity for LR. T&F fandom could make a resurgence in the next few years. If LR commits, they will be very well placed as the go to website.

I would agree with most of this assesment. LRC will be fine, and IMO does not need to change much. The absence of some running journalism sites does not really hit me hard. There is still more than enough for me to consume, (very ocasionally Citius, LRC all the time, IAAF, japanrunningnews, etc). What bothers me is the exit of places like All-Athletics, Alltime-Athletics, ARRS. Statistical history is essential to track and field, maybe more so than most sports with the exception of baseball. Could you imagine being a baseball fan without BBRef or Fangraphs? I could not. Similarly, I could not be a cycling fan without ProCyclingStats. Running Times, T&FN, whatever are nice but not as fundamental to the life of track and field as records of times, victories, splits, leaderboards.

Did not know about Ken Young. RIP. I hope someone continues the work he did. I know he had a lot of contributors, so hopefully someone picks it up.

While this truly is sad, it looks like all the information that was on all-athletics is now on iaaf.org. Hopefully they will be as good at updating it as all-athletics was...

The information on my profile there was innaccurate anyway.

There are still major age bests on this site too. I sent in corrections many times. Some were corrected and others are not. I've got a lot of more accurate information in certain areas of running records.

Another story about Ken Young and the ARRS database.

https://japanrunningnews.blogspot.com/2018/02/in-memory-of-ken-young.html

I hope someone will keep it up.

Legal Raccoon wrote:

This is actually an opportunity for LR. T&F fandom could make a resurgence in the next few years. If LR commits, they will be very well placed as the go to website.

This is actually a good point. Rojo/Wejo, what about looking into taking over the databases these sites had? It's about the best thing you can do to gain market share and boost LRC. This site could be so much more.

Another story about Ken Young-

https://runningmagazine.ca/arrs-cofounder-ken-young-dies/

tilastopaja.eu

456 wrote:

Gone will be the days of actual playgrounds. Parks will become overgrown from lack of use, and baseball and football games will be watched with drones from obese viewers miles away on their couches.

I'm glad I grew up when I did.

So you and I are in agreement? We can blame the decline of society on flocasts broadcasting events that few people even want to see live?

Querfeldein wrote:

tilastopaja.eu

I wish they had come up with a website name that made a little more sense in English because I never can remember it and wouldn't want to have to pronounce it.

Shoebacca wrote:

This is actually a good point. Rojo/Wejo, what about looking into taking over the databases these sites had? It's about the best thing you can do to gain market share and boost LRC. This site could be so much more.

All-Athletics will now be part of the IAAF. Wejo and Jonathan Gault used All-Athletics all the time. I hardly ever used it. I don't get why we must keep it up when a) Tilastapaja.org (the site I use) still exists and b) I assume all-athletics will just be part of the IAAF but instead of costing money will now be free.

Isn't this a win-win? Didn't you have to pay for all-athletics?