Twitter spat between Christian Taylor, Will Claye, Rome meet director and Carl Lewis is getting interesting

It’s always the sprinters that get caught up in this nonsense. You ever see a distance runner pulling this kind of stuff? False sense of entitlement if you ask me.

“In life the idea is to be simple and happy. Once you get that, you are free”

Eliud Kipchoge

I'm with Carl. How long until the IAAF will be the next AAU in reference to just being an entity of the past?

Will we ever see the IAAF overthrown?

It truly feels like the IAAF is the damn Empire from Star Wars.

Christian Taylor stays home DEVASTATED.

Carl is right. The sport is in decline at the pro level. At HS it’s thriving. Then begins to die in college with limited racing. In pros it’s essentially non exhistant.

Too much time between events. Little excitement. At least at a HS dual there’s always an event on the track.

Carl is right wrote:

Carl is right. The sport is in decline at the pro level. At HS it’s thriving. Then begins to die in college with limited racing. In pros it’s essentially non exhistant.

Too much time between events. Little excitement. At least at a HS dual there’s always an event on the track.

How did you manage "dual", but failed "nonexistent"?

Carl, I don't think "communist" is quite the word you're looking for there, chum.

Fly coach or use frequent flier miles to upgrade.

I'd love to know what Will Claye gets if anything for an appearance fee. A bit surprised he flies business class to Rome.

3rd place in a Diamond League meet only pays $4000. For a lot of these athletes it would make a lot more sense to fly coach and tell the race to give them a few thousand in appearance fees. If the races are expected to fly over American athletes, American athletes become a lot more expensive than a European athlete. A lot of other sports (golf in the US, tennis) athletes pay their own way, but they get a lot more in prize money.

What happens to these guys if the triple jump gets DROPPED from the Diamond League next year. Then what do they do?

I think a better system might be to keep more events and have them less often.

Take the 400m hurdles. It's looking like a really good event this year. But a few years ago it would have been on the chopping block. Some people like triple jump. Some the long jump. Instead of dropping one of them and having its popularity declining would it make more sense to have less of both of them?

Lewis's "communism" comment is a nonsequitur. I think he was looking for another word.

Hard to decipher the meet director's English. All I got out of it was that Taylor was demanding a crazy expensive business class ticket, which simply wasn't realistic.

And the Diamond League should listen to Rojos suggestions here. They make sense.

wejo wrote:

What happens to these guys if the triple jump gets DROPPED from the Diamond League next year. Then what do they do?

Taylor already does the long jump too. He can do that.

The heart of this issue is that deep down, the fans don't really care who can jump three times. It is the goofiest event in athletics, testing a skill with no practical use in the real world. And records seem to show it was invented as the explanation for impossibly good ancient greek long jump marks.

If there's going to be a popular jump besides the basics of long and high, it needs to be something people care about. Vertical leap, if that could be standardized, would be a good one.

I wouldn't pay a $10,500 ticket either, that's more than the prize money they are handing out. You would think a professional athlete like Taylor would have plenty of frequent flier points to bail him out every once in a while in situations like this.

Carl is right wrote:

Carl is right. The sport is in decline at the pro level. At HS it’s thriving. Then begins to die in college with limited racing. In pros it’s essentially non exhistant.

Too much time between events. Little excitement. At least at a HS dual there’s always an event on the track.

I agree, they need to condense the events. Also they should make it a team competition. The teams don’t necessarily need to be country’s but can be more like cycling teams.

What’s better than a 4 x 400 relay that decides who wins the meet. This makes many high school meets exciting.

Usually I'm going to be on the side of the athlete but this opens my eyes up to some extent to the mystery around appearance fees + travel. So the expectation was a $10k flight then lodging at the meet an appearance fee (if any) and then prize money? Seems awfully expensive for one person in a sport that isn't super popular. I would love to know how much money a meet makes & if they have plenty of money & could do it. Regardless, I would not have thought an athlete like this gets business class & don't see why they couldn't do the $3k flight instead. You can get a roundtrip ticket from NYC to Rome for $800 right now.

Take that $7k difference and give it back to the athletes in other ways. If I'm an athlete I want that money as prize money instead of something I don't really feel like a plane ticket. Again, if all of these meet directors are super rich and profit a ton more than the athletes do then we should look at that.

It appears to me that the meet directors tweet meant Claye wanted a $10k business class ticket and Taylor’s “fee” was not negotiable. It is probably something along the lines of $10-25k that is a take-it-or-no-appearance thing.

It's not like he's a top draw, either. A distance runner is on the track for a longer period of time.

I really wish they would open up about the money. It's a pro sport they should be open about expenses and appearance money.

I also think they could give less appearance and more prize money and go deeper with it.

Spectators don't care about this guy, I've never heard of him. His demands for a business class ticket are absurd. He should fly coach, and like it.

Exactly. The world will go on without seeing someone hop/skip/jump.

#getreal

lslrealist wrote:

I wouldn't pay a $10,500 ticket either, that's more than the prize money they are handing out. You would think a professional athlete like Taylor would have plenty of frequent flier points to bail him out every once in a while in situations like this.

Professional athletes aren't going to be using their miles for business trips. That said they must be doing well enough on their own already to have the option to skip diamond league meets. That alone tells me the I don't have to worry about the athletes.

The cheap seats are 5 Euros and the nice ones are 30. This guy is not going to sell 1000-1500 tickets to make it worth while to pay his airfair.