Toni Reavis is upset 2018 Chicago field is loaded. Sounds like he wants to see Mo vs Galen match race

Maybe blind wrote:

Anyone know why Rupp is not listed in the elite field that that was released yesterday?

That is the international elite field. That list does not include the US elite runners.

I remember they had a match race between Michael Johnson and Donovan Bailey a 150 meter dash, Bailey got the early lead, Johnson desperately putting everything he had to catch up pulled a muscle and Bailey coasted/jogged for the win, I would have preferred a full field with Linford Christie, Ato Bolden, Maurice Green etc. to see if one of them could have pulled an upset.

I prefer the Loaded Field to a match race, Yes Rupp and Farah are clearly the 2 best but I like the intrigue of seeing if a Geoffrey Kirui, Bedan Karoki or even Augustine Choge or someone else could pull off an upset by beating Rupp and Farah which would go down in History along with the USA Olympic Hockey team in 1980 beating Russia in the Semifinals and then Finland in the final or Buster Douglas beating Mike Tyson , We would ALL be shocked if the winner is not Rupp or Farah, but why not let these lesser guys have a shot at the big 2? Also I would like to see Kawauchi get a really fast time, Maybe even break the Japanese National Record of 2:06.11 even though he will likely be a quarter to half mile behind the big 2 (Note Kawauchi actually has a victory over Rupp in the Boston Marathon, as something was wrong with Rupp and he dropped out (Maybe food poisening? we will never know as Rupp never makes excuses) Rupp did run a 2:06.07 in Prague a few weeks later, he jogged with the leaders then ran away as he pleased due to not having any competition.

I PREFER LOADED FIELDS to a Match Race between 2 greats and thousands of joggers, The More Elite/World Class runners the better.

Toni Reavis is not interesting. He tries to be by developing and presented angles no one else has. That would be great if the ideas were useful, but they're not even good gimmicks. If this guy hadn't been covering running (often commendably) for about 40 years, people would think he was just some random blogger with ADD.

I too prefer a loaded field to a match race but how often do we get a loaded field major marathon? Ummm....100% of the time. I also prefer pancakes over French toast but not at every single breakfast. We are talking about a once in 5 year, 10 year, 25 year? event. The current model is not working. Fair weather fans are staying away in droves. Try something new and compelling maybe? And do you really believe Rupp and Farah "are clearly the two best" in this stellar field? If I was a betting man, and I'm not, I would take the field over these two for the win for sure.

The only time I think a match race is justified in track & field (competitively and marketing-wise) is when the two athletes are CLEARLY the two best in the world. Reavis forgets that Farah and Rupp are anything but that. They are just the easiest to market.

Practically, the marathon is probably the worst race for that. What if one of the two dropped out? Or even fell behind substantially. Wouldn't be much fun to watch, would it? A one-sided sprints lasts 10 seconds. A one-sided marathon...

Les wrote:

The only time I think a match race is justified in track & field (competitively and marketing-wise) is when the two athletes are CLEARLY the two best in the world. Reavis forgets that Farah and Rupp are anything but that. They are just the easiest to market.

Practically, the marathon is probably the worst race for that. What if one of the two dropped out? Or even fell behind substantially. Wouldn't be much fun to watch, would it? A one-sided sprints lasts 10 seconds. A one-sided marathon...

So if golf was dying a slow death, you'd pit Butch Koepka vs. Dustin Johnson or whomever was Ranked #1 & #2 in the world instead of Tiger vs. Phil? Heaven forbid a for profit entity chooses the 2 who are "easiest to market". The sport may be well past needing a shot in the arm but why give up if the patient still has a breath of life.

thinking about this wrote:

Face it: it's much more exciting if you know who the competitors are, well enough to either root for them or against them. Of elite male marathoners, very few of them would appeal this way to the semi-fan crowd:

Farah

Rupp

Kipchoge (he's the Breaking-2 guy, right?)

Kawauchi

Chicago could've had Farah vs. Rupp vs. Kawauchi in a non-paced race. THAT would've been awesome.

Sometimes more is less.

Ha ha, didn't even have to click on the link to spot the malapropism, boneheaded writing, or mangled grammar in this Reavis post. Yo retard- it's obvious from what you're trying to say that the phrase you want is "less is more," not "more is less," m0r0n.

The only way Reavis gets hits on his site is through LRC forum links. Nobody reads that clown. He's almost as bad at writing as the Brojos. Hey Toni, maybe it's cuz you didn't read enuff when you were a kid so the language skills to blog just aren't there. Why don't you stick to emceeing awards ceremonies for Kenyans with three person audiences while being an a-hole to event staff?

Disagree with reavis. The marathon is too long and unpredictable to set up an exciting head to head match. You are more likely to get an exciting race if you load up the field so that there are at least a few guys near the lead in the last 10k.

Instead of focusing on head to head matchups, I think think we need better TV coverage. Show more of the race. Have more cameras out there. Show the mile splits. Don’t miss the winning move. Use a split screen during commercials of if you want to show the wheelchair race. The Tour de France is a great example of how good TV coverage can be for an endurance event.

I am with my friend Toni on this but urge a diversification to match races of teams against teams. With five on a team there are more stories, more variables, and with the addition of the teams and their sponsors as well as the race and its sponsors promoting the competition their would be more public interest. There would be less risk of a single runner pulling out and deflating the tension. It would be like our interest in team collegiate XC competition.

I know this cannot be done unilaterally and over night. But ten years from now it would be better for the sport. I bet Boston can beat Oregon in Chicago 2025.

Tom

Most of you are hypocrites.

Berlin 2017 was basically a match race. Kipchoge vs Bekele vs Kipsang. That's exactly how it was marketed and all of you dorks were excited about it.

Marathon participants are at record highs over the last 10 years, and shoe sales and development for running shoes are at an all time high, yet people don't care about watching the elite marathons. Why do you think that is?

Why is Galen vs Mo not interesting? Are you mad that it takes place place at a WMM? Who cares. No one that wins this marathon is winning the points total. It would be fun to see. It really doesn't need to be that deep of a field. Sure it's good for super fans, but terrible for marketing.

They would generate more interest in the sport, which is good for all of us.

Basically, either be happy with the field and paying for your NBC Gold membership and FloTrack memberships, or shut the F up. You can't have great free coverage and commentators with stack fields, filled with nobodies who will come and go.

But Guye Adola ran 2:03 and beat 2 of the 3, I like having lesser names that are good in the Field, Today's nobody is Tomorrows somebody, if the guys that are being marketed are so good, they should finish at the front regardless of how deep the field is, if somebody beats them, you have a new star.

....and THEN, when they become the (a) new star, you highlight them in the next big race. The idea of narrowing the focus (Toni never intimated that it be a 2 person field! Where did that come from?) has a lot of merit.

The first post is fair and the second is what it comes down to for me. Any time the stars match up we're going to get excited. The top-3 marathoners going at it, what's not to like? But there were people missing from the field. I would have liked to see Rupp, and Kirui (both Kirui's), Mo, Tadese, etc. in that race. And Adola threw down with the big guns and nearly pulled off an upset. He was barely mentioned in the lead-up and he came close to the win. The marathon is unpredictable. There doesn't have to be a right answer here. Track and field isn't popular. We need to find ways to get people interested or maybe the product isn't bad but the structure and the coverage. A problem with marathoning is that they're essentially one off races. Yeah, you can win the world marathon majors title but nobody cares about that. The top runners split up between the top events because the top events happen on top of each other. Mo can't run Boston & London. It would be cool if there were a Diamond League type set-up for road races, sort of like the USA Running Circuit. Have an international circuit where there are 1-2 races a month where you can earn points and the fields are the same so you can have a world rankings. The races already exist. The problem right now is that winning Beach 2 Beacon or Falmouth doesn't really mean much to the general public because the races are entirely separate from one another.

Absolutely agree with your second paragraph. The local TV production of the Chicago Marathon is horrific.

"Now back to the mariachi dancers with chinese dragon heads in boys town, already in progress"

Pay attention Tony: It is very sweet to see anonymous, interchangeable champions that come and go like ghosts beating the seeded favorites.

That's the true beauty (if any left) of this sport.

Toni who?

more_or_less wrote:

Sometimes more is less.

Ha ha, didn't even have to click on the link to spot the malapropism, boneheaded writing, or mangled grammar in this Reavis post. Yo retard- it's obvious from what you're trying to say that the phrase you want is "less is more," not "more is less," m0r0n.

The only way Reavis gets hits on his site is through LRC forum links. Nobody reads that clown. He's almost as bad at writing as the Brojos. Hey Toni, maybe it's cuz you didn't read enuff when you were a kid so the language skills to blog just aren't there. Why don't you stick to emceeing awards ceremonies for Kenyans with three person audiences while being an a-hole to event staff?

You ruined your entire point when you used "cuz" and "enuff ". Hopefully, you were being sarcastic. You've got a serious axe to grind against the old dude, huh?

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