Discussion of Week: No Bowerman TC athletes will be at Diamond League finals; what can sport do to make athletes compete more?

I’m not saying pick an event for the entire series, rather make them pick an event prior to each meet of the series. So a runner could run an 800m one race and the 1500 next race.

For the sake of competition maybe of two championships, sprints (100, 200, and 400) and distance (800, 1500, 3000).

* which BTW, amazing how much has changed in one WC cycle.. World Champs and their place in DL Final(s)... 2 of the Gold Medalists also won the DL Final, while 3 of the Gold Medalists did not partake in DL Final

2017 WORLD CHAMPIONS

100m - Justin Gatlin (USA) ~ 4th Place at DL Final

200m - Ramil Guliyev (TUR) ~ 3rd Place at DL Final

400m - Wayde van Niekirk (RSA) ~ DNC DL Final

800m - Pierre Ambroise-Bosse (FRA) ~ DNC DL Final

1500m - Elijah Manangoi (KEN) ~ 3rd Place DL Final

3000m SC - Conselus Kipruto (KEN) ~ DL Final Champion

5000m - Muktar Edris (ETH) ~ 2nd Place DL Final

10,000m - Mo Farah (GBR) ~ DL Final Champion (5000m)

110mH - Omar McLeod (JAM) ~ DNC DL Final

400mH - Karsten Warholm (NOR) ~ 2nd Place DL Final

The most compelling event in T&F right now is the women's 1500m, IMO. Laura Muir, Sifan Hassan, Koko, Shelby Houlihan, Genzebe Dibaba, Faith Kipyegon, you can't count out Jenny Simpson, and I'm probably being unfair to a number of others (Winny Chebet?). But the Brojos are right, I gave 7 names there and they race... infrequently.

4 of the 7 women’s runners you mention in the 1500 are white. Another represents Holland. European and American (where the money comes from) interest is generated by having athletes from places outside of Africa.

Private individuals are making decisions that are best for themselves. Who are you to interfere? Are you a socialist?

I'm gonna disagree with the premise. Most of the top athletes actually do race each other, and they do so on a semi-regular basis, at least in historic terms. Long waits for big matchups are nothing new in running, and it was actually much worse in the shamateur era. Running has never been like golf.

The BTC is an outlier in its general aversion to racing. This practice seems to line up with what we're increasingly seeing at the NCAA level. I suppose I shouldn't spout opinions, as I'm not a coach myself, but the whole thing strikes me as pretty silly. Yes, it's possible for athletes to be overraced, but a moderate dose of racing doesn't interfere with training; its supports it. Races are great substitutes for hard workouts, and more frequent racing makes athletes more relaxed in competition.

I think a lot of it comes down to coaches feeling like they lose control by letting their athletes race. They have to make adjustments to the schedule to fit the races in. They have to show the world what kind of shape their athlete is in. They have to accept that the race will unfold in an unpredictable manner, and the athlete is going to be the last word on how he or she decides to race.

Outside of the BTC, I think there are a handful of athletes who duck their competition, particularly in the sprints. I think the solution there is pretty simple: Their sponsors should require a given number of head to head matchups against particular individuals. The sponsors WOULD do this in just about any other sport. That they don't do it in track just seems to indicate how little the sponsors even care.

Echion wrote:

For a lot of people, seemingly including the entirety of the website operators, maybe this sport isnt for you? Like it or not running is strictly tied to the limitations of optimal human performance. But you know that so Im guessing too much espn has poisoned your sense of reality.

I just cant get on board with this mentality of forcing a change. Its a slippery slope of eroding integrity.

My input is to recognize these confines and work within then. Celebrate those aspects in your marketing. I love the wild variety of match ups. Just get better at B and C level runner hyping and recognition so the audience feels attached to more names.

But I understand the world is addicted to garbage so go ahead and suck the life out of this one.

This pretty much sums it up for me. I just don't get the motivation to drastically change the sport to try to get other people to pay attention to it. Cause they probably won't! Enjoy it for what it is - a niche sport. Are there things that track could do better? Sure. But I would say the sport is definitely better today from a spectator POV than it was at any other time in the past 15 or so years (my track viewship lifetime). I wish they would keep some emphasis on the longer track stuff (Diamond League 5000/10000) and cross country (annual World XC), but beggars can't be choosers.

I heavily follow runners from around the world that would definitely fall into the "B and C level" category, and I completely agree that it helps with watching a lot of meets. If there is "A level" talent - great! But if not, I can still get virtually as much enjoyment out of watching a really good race, even if it's more of a 3:37-3:40 type 1500 instead of 3:29-3:32. What track does need are announcers that can really speak to these runners and their stories before and during the races.

Agreed 100% with 800 Dude. Let's be real, even if every BTC athlete were in Zurich/Brussels they'd probably walk away with 0 DL Championships. This is all fuss over nothing.

Centro and Shelby are the two biggest names at BTC right now. Centro's best time since Rio is a 3:31.77. That form isn't going to win you jack right now. Tim Cheruiyot has won multiple DLs this year, the Ingerbritsen bros flood every DL like it's a family reunion, Souleiman is out and about, Kejelcha multiple DLs. I'd never count Centro out at a championship, but he's not a great match for DL style fast races these days.

Shelby is good, but has lost her last two head to heads with Muir, and definitely is not in the same class as Hassan or Dibaba who have to be the two biggest names in middle distance women's running right now. Dibaba has raced and won multiple DLs this year, Hassan has raced and won multiple DLs, Muir raced multiple DLs and won one, Kipyegon has been injured. Konstanze has been on the circuit a lot.

Quigley n Frerichs are good in the steeple, but they can't hold a candle to Chepkoech unless she runs the wrong way around an oval track and runs into a hurdle. Chepkoech is at nearly ever DL.

BTC aren't at Zurich or Brussels. Shrug. Most people the track world cares about are so let's move on.

T&F was on TV more in the 70s, which is amazing considering we had three channels.

And in the 80s we had dudes and dudettes running European meets every couple days.

T&F is dead.

Sanders has proposed no government takeover of the economy. He has proposed Medicare for All.

And get off my lawn, too wrote:

T&F was on TV more in the 70s, which is amazing considering we had three channels.

And in the 80s we had dudes and dudettes running European meets every couple days.

T&F is dead.

They still do. Since the end of May (approx 90 days ago) there's been 47 European Permit meetings (Premium, Classic & Area). There's also been a number of other decent international meetings that don't have European permit status.

Meanwhile ...

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9566853

It's all about the money. USA Basketball is a prime example. All the stars have pulled out because they feel like it's a waste of time.

If you announced that 1 year from now you would have payouts of the following for some distance race, you would get every USA runner under the sun training their brains and balls out. They would all skip the Olympics. Well, at least all the top athletes would skip the Olympics. The Olympics would be full of Letsrun posters and other hobby joggers.

1st: $1m

2nd: $750k

3rd: $500k

4th-10th: $300k

11th-20th: $200k

21st-40th: $100k

41st-100th: $50k

It wouldn't matter what distance you choose for these payouts. EVERY runner under the sun would train for that distance immediately.

Dan Pink's work on incentives is a really useful research-based insight into why prize money is probably not the answer to boost participation (or performance)

https://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation?language=en

I suggest you'll get better athlete buy-in paying athletes to participate, no matter their placing, then step aside with the incentives and just let them race for the joy of competing.

Schnellerlaufen wrote:

Surely sponsors have the responsibility and opportunity to make their athletes race? Nike or Adidas could easily put a point in athletes contracts stating that they must race at x events per year or specific diamond leagues.

This not only increases the number of events an athlete competes in, but also gains more exposure for the company because the athlete is wearing their shoes and singlet. Seems like a win win.

I've run for a few different companies - most of my contracts had reduction clauses for not competing every x number of months. Isn't Nike pretty infamous for that?

Would I like to see our US athletes compete more? Sure.

Flip side is, we are light years better than we were in previous generations. Our guys and gals run much faster and we compete for medals in many distances.

I understand that Rojo is butthurt about this particular topic, but the athlete’s goals are usually do run/compete as fast/best they can and who are we to demand they fly to Holland for some random race.

This isn’t football, Rojo. Track and Field is its own unique sport.

I know the solution - and the way to test it out publicly on one single event (the 10000 meters) to prove that it works!

The 10000 meters is already basically a non-event outside of major championships (and a spare few hold-out meets around the world with long histories of it being run there). I think I remember reading it might even get dropped from championships altogheter soon if some people within IAAF gets their wish. And we all know that more and more young runners skip the 10000 and just move straight to the Marathon.

So the 10000 meter track runners and their sponsors have the least to lose from a change - and the most to win by trying something new.

Here's the core of the idea:

Instead of crowning a world champ once every two years, have a 10000 world championship every two months, in six different places (on six different continents) around the world. Something like this (though obviously the order can be discussed):

February: Australia

April: South America

June: North America

August: Europe

October: Asia

December: Africa

Always 25 men and 25 women (because ”25 men/women, 25 laps” is such a great slogan).

Top 10 in every championship automatically qualifies for the next round (because that makes the race and rivalries behind that over the gold medal more interresting too; pre, per and post).

10 spots to be selected 1 each by the 10 biggest shoe companies in the world (because if they don't get onboard nothing will happen anyway - and starting line brand rivalry like that works great for PR and sponsor sales in both NASCAR, F1, Cycling and other sports).

4 spots to be selected by the organisational city/nation/region.

And the 1 final spot to somehow be voted on by fans worldwide (to enhance all the athletes' social media game and the overall fans-athletes sport promoting game against other sports).

That was the core of the idea, I've been wishing for something like that for years, I'm so glad this thread gave me the opportunity to present it here! :-)

Additional benefits: 6 championships a year works great for sumo wrestling, we already know it works in that their fans can handle that much, so this idea isn't really new in that aspect. Putting a coloured jersey on the reigning champ could be a clue taken from cycling. And after a couple of initial years the rounds to be held in Africa and Asia and South America could be used by the IAAF to let smaller nations try their hands on organizing a championship (and by small I mean really small, i.e nations that are too small to under current circumstances ever be able to host a full T&A championship or Olympics - so that part for them would be great too!).

David S wrote:

I think tennis is doing a really great job right now. Top athletes get automatic entries into grand slams, they get money for playing, money for winning... You've got the occasional Kyrgios but that's the exception to the rule.

There's more money in tennis period than athletics. But also with reduction clauses ubiquitous, track & field athletes get penalized for not performing well. This doesn't happen in tennis. If a #1 ranked player gets upset in the first round of a tournament, his sponsor doesn't cut his salary -- he just makes less prize money. But in track if you don't have good year it can hurt you directly and immediately.

I think WJ and JG had a good point in the podcast: If you fail at Worlds which could be for some freak accident, esp. in the steeple, you have almost nothing to show for the whole track season. A DL win or good placement or good marks in tough competitions are good publicity and probably also good for the athletes mental strength in general.