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USATF Should Be Split
As the year ended I reflected on the sport as I see it. I continue to look at a sport that many say is dying, and continue to see a sport that I feel just needs tweaking. Not the sport itself. The full slate of events should be contested – and on the track, not down the middle of the street. No, I think the tweaking needs to occur within its administration. The people that run it and how it’s run. Like I said previously, if Bezos, Jobs, or Gates owned track and field heads would be scattered on the floor and administrative change would have long been in progress.…
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We Need MORE Track Towns, Not Just One
In my last post, I mentioned several things that I would like to see happen in 2014 – and I will address all ten of them during the early part of the new year. Reading the news yesterday morning, however, I decided to close out the year with something I don’t want to see happen. The establishment of permanent sites for major championship meets in the United States. Now before I get too far along, I’ve somewhat breached this topic before – and each time I’ve been accused of not liking or putting down Eugene. This in spite of the fact that I’ve said little negative about Eugene, and nothing…
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Out With the Old, in With Something New?
We’ve got about a week and a half until Christmas, then another week until the calendar turns to 2014. Somehow it seems like a long way back to Moscow and it feels like it’s been a very long year in general. I’ve not posted in a couple weeks or so because I’ve been reflecting back on the season, trying to figure out just what I wanted to say, because to be honest it hasn’t been my favorite season ever. Far too much negativity as the issue of drug use in the sport hung like a heavy cloud over things all year and permeated this year’s World Championships. This in a…
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Year Round Sports Are Depleting US Track
As we’ve watched the world catch up to us in the speed events – sprints, hurdles, relays – we’ve often complained about other sports stealing talent away from track and field. Especially when speed burners like Trindon Holliday, Jeff Demps, and Tyreek Hill come along and opt to focus their considerable talents on football. Of course it’s very easy to single out football because track/football stars get visibility in two high profile areas. After all, they’re usually running backs or wide receivers in football, and then run the high profile sprints in track and field. Add that with the speed they posses, they been landed by high profile collegiate programs…
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Mary Cain to Go Pro
It had to happen sooner or later, a high school phenomenon turning pro. After all, we’ve seen world class high schoolers in the past. Certainly several WAY back during the early days of track and field when youngsters like Bob Mathias were dominant internationally. Even during what I consider the modern era of the sport – The 1960’s forward, athletes like, Houston McTear, Mary Decker, Dwayne Evans, and Gerry Lindgren among others were among the top world class level athletes. There was simply no professional track for them to transition into. More recently, however, we’ve seen Allyson Felix emerge as an international threat while in high school. She made the…
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PED’s a Decade After BALCO
BALCO. The biggest doping scandal in sports history. From Barry Bonds to Marion Jones, some of the biggest names in sport came tumbling down. Victor Conte became a household name. Everyone became familiar with the phrase "performance enhancing drugs".Baseball’s greatest era of home run hitters was labeled "The Drug Era" and American athletes – specifically sprinters – drew the stigma of dopers! Not a pretty sight! Doping issues in the sport were grabbing headlines weekly. And it seemed like the only news the sport could get was bad news. Every American sprinter that ran under 10.00, 20.00, 11.00, or 22.00 became suspect, and the bashing of US sprinters became a…
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Tokyo to Host 2020 Games – Who Next
The choice has been made and the IOC had chosen Tokyo as the Host city for the 2020 Olympics. I actually have lots of notes on the topic as I had originally intended to give my thoughts on who should be selected. But the more I looked, the more I realized that the choice was more one of the lesser of three evils than who was the best choice. That said, I’m quite surprised that Madrid got little love from the IOC. Nice city. They did s fine job with Barcelona back in ’92. Track wise they pulled off Worlds in Seville. And they have more venues in place already.…
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The Status of US Track – Sprints
The track season is over and cross country is under way. So it’s time to take a look back at 2013 while it’s still fresh – because a lot happened this year. So much so that I’ve started several different posts over the past week and each time decided that I really wanted to address something else! Topics I’ve considered have included Doping; College v Elite Track; The Structure of the Sport; and The predicament that Justin Gatlin Puts the Sport In, just to name a few. I decided however, to start with a discussion of US sprinting, because in many ways it covers several important topics related to the…
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World Championships Review, Individuals Pt 2
Time to finish up my thoughts on the individual performances from the World Championships. As this was not one of my favorite Worlds, for reasons already discussed, there were more performances that I was disappointed in than those I was ecstatic about. So many that as I started writing this I had to edit down to a reasonable number. After all the entire meet wasn’t quite a disappointment. So, while I was disappointed in the time for the men’s 4×4 for example, it’s not listed. Nor are other events where I simply was down on the performances. I tried to keep my “disappointment” to the way the athletes performed. I’ve…
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World Championships Review–Individuals Pt1
Now for the fun part, looking at individual performances – and there were certainly some very good ones. First however, let’s get a bit of perspective by taking a look at medal counts. The double digit medal earners: United States 25 total, 6 gold, 14 silver, 5 bronze. Russia 17 total, 7 gold, 4 silver, 6 bronze Kenya 12 total, 5 gold, 4 silver, 3 bronze Ethiopia 10 total, 3 gold, 3 silver, 4 bronze As expected Russians performed well at home. While traditional European power Germany continues to have difficulty getting back to Eastern Bloc prominence. In general there was no core of dominant nations, but a relatively even…