Weirdest things you've ever seen at track meets?

one time i was racing the 1600 and this other dude and I had dropped the pack by about 20m. So we were going pretty strong on the 3rd pal, but once we get to the backstretch this dude just rips one, it seemed to go on forever. After the fact I was simply in shock so I passed him, and won the race. After finishing he walked up to me and tried to share my hand, this dude still smelled like a giant fart, so i simply gave him a firm nod and carried on with my day

I like this thread

we had a false start in the 5000m.

it was a league race at Parliament Hill, so many years ago the track was cinders.

I set my pb that day.

cheers.

Our conference meet had a 5000m racewalk, because a guy from one team and a girl from another team competed on the national level in the event. None of the other teams had anyone serious, but a couple teams put people in for points anyway. This results in a leisurely stroll where a group of guys walked at 45 min 5k pace to chat with their teammates, as they got lapped many times by the 20 min 5k guy and 25 minute girl. The announcer took it 100% seriously the entire time, and said things like "THEY ARE COMING DOWN THE BACKSTRETCH AGAIN, let's hear it for them folks! They are walking a full 5000 meters!!"

Other coaches were annoyed to say the least, and there may be a time limit for next year.

HS Sectional 1996.

Standing next to one of our discus or shot guys. Out of nowhere another big dude comes running up to him shoving him. Apparently they had some beef. Our guy picks up the other guy and slams him into a trash can next to us. I go on to win the 3200m.

Alan

Not track but Cross country. 9th grade. About 50 guys on the starting line. The man says everybody ready? One runner says:” wait a second, can I pee?” Man says:” go ahead” all 50 runners going to pee

Several times, some parents got into a loud argument about who had “reserved” a spot on the bleachers.

At a middle school meet (I’m a senior in high school now, but it seems like more weird stuff happens in middle school meets), I was running the 800, and right before the event, this one girl who was also entered in the 800 was going around to everyone saying how she will run professionally after college, and already had college coaches sending her recruitment letters.

She ended up running it in over 5 minutes.

These are from HS meets.

1) A distance runner using a shotput and tent-spike to crack open a javelin.

2) A group of runners carrying one of those 6' sandwiches to their "team camp" like a group of hunters bringing a deer to their tribe.

3) This one kid studying AP flashcards on the starting line...

4) Not weird as much as petty. It was at a regional track meet. There was one school that came from an affluent area and 5 schools that came from poorer areas.

The coach from the affluent school got the winning 4x400m team dq'd because the logo on one ahtlete's shorts wore off and argued that they no longer had matching uniforms. Argued that if the school (my school) wanted to win, they should've bought better uniforms. This same coach entered in some pole-vaulters into the competition who couldn't even pole vault. Just because there was 3 of his legitimate pole-vaulters in the region, 1 from my school, and none else and figured he could get some easy points. (My coach responded to that by in the future offering any other school to use our PV pits and PV coach so that it wouldn't happen again) We ended up losing the meet by one point.

During an early season HS all comers meet, we had a few 4x400 relay teams from various schools. They all agreed to give themselves gay names - The Homos, Outta the Closet, Out and Proud. The announcer plays along, and you can guess what happens during the race. One saying in particular sticks out:

"The Homos are in front, but Out and Proud is right on their back."

At a hammer throw pit and someone got hit by the hammer and killed them. Not cool.

Last year some guys were practicing their javelin throws, and a one of them threw it wrong and it almost got one of his teamates by like a foot.

Folks need to pay attention around some of these events....

This could have been deadly but-

The track was in a valley, the press box at the top of the bleachers on the hill. Discus area behind the press box.

A discus comes flying out the window of the press box- it went in the open door at the back, through the press box, out the front window of the press box. No one hurt.

After a hs xc meet, a girl was eating a bagel by picking the inside out of the bagel, so as to not eat the "crust". I think she may have been anorexic or something. I saw another girl cutting skittles into pieces with a knife once, but she wasn't a runner.

I was running the 800m on a quite windy day. There was a large tent on the field right at the finish line (timing tables). With about 10 meters left in the race a huge gust of wind comes through and blows the tent onto the track. It hits me so hard that I was knocked to the ground, thankfully, as I was crossing the finish line. Very poor part on the meet director.

This past Friday I was down on the track cheering for a teammate in the 5000. The pack was on the opposite side of the track, and I notice a Canadian goose flying over the home stretch. I tapped one of my buddies on the shoulder and said, "look at that duck." Then, just as we both looked back at this flying goose, it let out a cloud of p!ss or sh!t or something, it looked like a single-engine plane crop dusting a field, or a salmon fertilizing a bunch of eggs. The stadium lights were right on this goose too, so you could clearly see it. I exclaimed, "He just sh!tted!" as the cloud of excrement descended to the track. I think the runners were about ten seconds away from getting a cloud of goose p!ss dropped on them halfway through a 5k.

This was about 3 weeks ago:

Medium sized HS meet with small schools. The last 4x400 (V Boys) was underway, and as the 1st legs rounded the 100 curve, EVERYBODY immediately cut in. Oblivious to the shouting around them saying "Stay in your lane!" they continue to make their way around the track. With about 50m to go in their leg, they all cut BACK OUT to their original lanes and hand the baton off to the 2nd leg.

Kvothe wrote:

After a hs xc meet, a girl was eating a bagel by picking the inside out of the bagel, so as to not eat the "crust". I think she may have been anorexic or something. I saw another girl cutting skittles into pieces with a knife once, but she wasn't a runner.

How do YOU eat skittles? With your hands?

For me, it was seeing long jumper Llewelyn Starks, who later became notorious for something else, shattering his leg in multiple places as he hit the takeoff board. It sounded like a highpowered rifle shot. Carl lewis, who was sitting on a bench at the other end of the runway, ran over to see what happened. The next time I saw Starks, he had that elaborate cage and pins arrangement on his leg.

I know this is a track meet thread but this deserves a mention. I was watching a JV conference cross country meet once and the battle for ~20th place got pretty wild.

This one kid pulls up on another with about 120 yards to go. The one kid nudges with his shoulder and the other pushes and elbows. They start sprinting and passing up others. The kid who originally nudged looks over at his rival, shows his teeth and gives a random growling bark in his face like some sort of rabid dog or wolf and all the onlookers could see. Pushing and shoving kept going all the way to the end. Definitely entertaining. The barker won. Whenever I see my former teammates that is still a butt of our inside jokes. Sometimes we mock that kid and growl and bark at each other the same way to be funny.

Typical slacker jv types that were moving pretty good at the end. Most random thing ever. Couldnt believe it happened it was so random.

It didn’t seem weird to me, but others at the meet thought it was.

During an all day track meet we played baseball in between races. We won the 4x800, 4x1600, and DMR at a very high quality meet (where it takes sub 8:00, sub 18, and sub 10:20 to win, respectively. Our coach wasn’t pleased, but since we won he had no argument.