{"id":3012,"date":"2026-08-02T09:06:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T16:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=3012"},"modified":"2026-08-02T09:06:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T16:06:22","slug":"the-truth-about-us-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=3012","title":{"rendered":"The Truth About US Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0405.png\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-attachment-id=\"3017\" data-permalink=\"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?attachment_id=3017\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0405.png?fit=1408%2C768\" data-orig-size=\"1408,768\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"IMG_0405\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0405.png?fit=960%2C524\" class=\"alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-3017\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0405.png?resize=150%2C150\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0405.png?resize=150%2C150 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0405.png?zoom=2&amp;resize=150%2C150 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/IMG_0405.png?zoom=3&amp;resize=150%2C150 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 150px) 100vw, 150px\" \/><\/a>The US Track &amp; Field<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Championships have come and gone, and that phrase alone pretty much describes them. They happened. There were a handful of exciting races. Noah Lyles stepping on the gas and blitzing to a 9.79 win. Melissa Jefferson Wooden doing the same in the 200m in 21.69. A photo in the 110H finding Cordell Tinch 13.00 an eyelash ahead of Bradley Franklin&#8217;s 13.00. Unfortunately, the meet was more notable for who wasn&#8217;t at the meet. As a majority of defending champions, record holders, and elite competitors elected to bypass the meet with no global championship berths on the line. Resulting in a rather bland overall championships. Reflecting in obviously poor attendance.<\/p>\n<p>This was the visual that everyone saw. A visual that didn&#8217;t just show up in New York Thursday thru Sunday, but has been years in the making, and THAT is what I&#8217;m going to discuss today, because I know that many are going to blame it on the change from Eugene to New York, citing Eugene as the only place capable of hosting the meet. When the reality is just the opposite. Let me explain.<\/p>\n<p>There were some that said that moving the USA Track &amp; Field (USATF) Outdoor Championships out of Eugene to the nation&#8217;s premier media capital, New York, would prove that track and field could thrive on a grand stage. Instead, it exposed a painful truth: location alone cannot fix a fundamentally broken product. Empty stands in a major media market, a missing contingent of marquee superstars, and non-existent public buzz demonstrated that decades of mismanagement, poor scheduling, and brand stagnation have eroded the event&#8217;s cultural standing.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>For the past decade the attendance in Eugene has dropped precipitously. To well under 4000 per day in recent editions. Finally prompting USATF to take a years reprieve and host in New York. However, bleachers were largely vacant, ambient crowd noise was sparse, and local visibility across the tri-state area was virtually zero. The event felt less like a premier national championship and more like an obscure regional qualifier. The failure in New York highlighted three core systemic failures:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>1. The &#8220;Eugene Bubble&#8221; Hangover &amp; Erased Brand Recognition<\/b><\/p>\n<p>For approx two decades, USATF repeatedly used Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, as its default location. While Eugene possesses a passionate local running subculture, hosting the premier national meet there year after year isolated the sport from mainstream America. By defaulting to &#8220;TrackTown USA,&#8221; governing officials neglected the hard work of building regional fanbases, local media relationships, and event production capabilities in major metropolitan areas. When the meet finally moved to New York, there was no foundational brand awareness or local infrastructure to build upon.<\/p>\n<p><b>2. The Star-Power Void: An Event Abandoned by Its Own Stars<\/b><\/p>\n<p>A sports championship cannot attract paying fans if its marquee stars do not show up. In New York, an alarming number of top-ranked U.S. athletes\u2014Olympic medalists, world record holders, and global fan favorites, bypassed the meet entirely. Without guaranteed appearances by household names, general sports fans have zero incentive to buy tickets or tune into broadcasts.<\/p>\n<p><b>3. Non-Existent Marketing &amp; Zero Local Activation<\/b><\/p>\n<p>In a city that demands aggressive, high-impact promotion to capture attention, the championship\u2019s marketing footprint was completely invisible. There were no subway takeovers, no digital billboard campaigns in Times Square, no grassroots pop-ups in local running clubs, and no synergy with mainstream New York sports media outlets. Expecting New Yorkers to simply discover a niche track meet by accident was an organizational fantasy. As Erin Brown recently said online, hire some real ninjas and let ninjas do what they do, because clearly no one at USATF understands how to market the sport.<\/p>\n<p>So, why do athletes skip the meet, and why do fans stay home? Let&#8217;s start by talking money. Prize money at the U.S. Championship remains pathetically<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>low compared to international Diamond League meets or other meets. With first place earning $8,800! If you are not on the podium, fourth place earns $3,300 down to $1,000 for seventh. After paying the costs of going to the meet, you barely make anything, with most athletes losing money. Top athletes view the national championship as a high-risk, low-reward obligation rather than a lucrative career accomplishment. If there is no championship team on the line, why go? That&#8217;s not how athletes should see the country&#8217;s top meet of the year, as a financial loss. As for fans, let&#8217;s be honest. Events are spread across 4 long days with massive multi-hour lulls, designed primarily for official operational convenience rather than spectator engagement. Two of those days are work days for most fans, who we ask to take time from work to sit through hours of low-stakes preliminary heats in the summer heat. Similarly casual viewers turn off broadcasts that are full of names they do not know, in races that do not matter. Fans want big names and finals.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>So, how do we make the meet INVITING for both athletes and fans? That&#8217;s really the question on the table. Fixing the U.S. Track and Field Championships will require radical reform, not incremental tweaking. USATF must treat the meet as a marquee entertainment franchise rather than a mere administrative selection trials, which is how it&#8217;s been treated in the past. That means that things like location, matter. Marketing the meet properly, matters. You can&#8217;t simply say, we&#8217;re having our championship and expect people to just come watch. The following<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\"> \u00a0<\/span>blueprint outlines how to restore attendance, athlete participation, and public interest.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Enforce &amp; Fund Athlete Participation<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Restructure athlete national team funding and USATF Tier-1 support so that participation in the Outdoor National Championship is mandatory unless sidelined by verified medical grounds. Do so by making substantial increases in prize structure. Quadruple the championship prize pool by securing dedicated event-level corporate sponsors. Winning a national title should carry a minimum $50,000 to $100,000 payout, making it financially unviable for stars to skip the meet. Making the finals, and specifically the podium, should do substantially more than subsidize your costs of participating in the meet! It should be a real payday, in line with a Diamond League competition. Frankly more given the multiple rounds structure of the meet. I&#8217;m also suggesting Direct Revenue Sharing. Introduce a ticket revenue share and merchandise royalty program for participating athletes, transforming competitors into financial partners who actively promote the event.<\/p>\n<p><b>Develop a Modernized Fan First Event Format<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p>Create a compressed 2-Day Fast-Paced Window taylored to both fans and television. Eliminate bloated multi-day schedules. Restructure the championship into a tight, 2.5-hour action-packed window on Friday evening and Saturday night, delivering nothing but<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>final-round excitement. All early rounds can be held on Wednesday and Thursday. Stream the rounds for the true fans, but the streamlined finals should be on major TV channels and platforms so that they are universally available. This also ensures must attend days on Friday and Saturday Basically stars only events. Think NCAA Regionals on Wednesday, Thursday. NCAA Championships on Friday and Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>To protect athlete health and guarantee star power on peak TV days, reigning World and Olympic medalists should be granted an automatic bye past opening preliminary rounds directly into the semi-finals. This optional privilege rewards global success, reduces injury risk, and keeps household names fresh for high-stakes weekend broadcasts. Meanwhile, opening rounds on Wednesday and Thursday create compelling narratives as contenders fight for the remaining spots to challenge the champions, setting up clear, high-drama rivalries heading into the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Preliminary rounds (held Wednesday\/Thursday) proceed normally, advancing a predetermined number of athletes from the field to join the seeded medalists in the semi-finals. The standard 16- or 24-athlete semi-final field size remains intact. Lane Assignment &amp; Seeding: Seed bye-earners into top-tier center lanes for the semi-finals based on their world ranking or season&#8217;s best (SB), rewarding proven excellence while maintaining fair heat distribution. With the stars now not competing in the opening round, create a fan friendly event on Thursday. A &#8220;Meet the Stars&#8221; type event. Fan signings, pictures, etc. Conduct a live press conference, with post press conference interviews. Let&#8217;s look for ways to get the athletes engaging with the public prior to the final two big days of competition. Yes, Sha&#8217;Carri, Noah, and Gabby are known. We need to get more faces and names into the public sphere.<\/p>\n<p><b>Strategic Venue Rotation &amp; Local Activation Engine<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Finally we need<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>to develop a 4-Year Major Metro Rotation for the championship meet. Establish a fixed, rotating circuit among major metropolitan markets with established track facilities (e.g.,New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta). Announce venues 3 years in advance to build local corporate sponsorship. Announcing that the meet was going to be in New York months before the competition was in no way a sufficient lead up. Just as World Championships are announced years in advance, so should National Championships. Local organizers need time to develop partnerships with running clubs, local high schools, community colleges, and four year schools. The sport needs to create more grass roots activities in those cities it plans to host Nationals, also cities if would like to host gold level events. We must do a better job of cultivating our fan base. A fan base is grown it doesn&#8217;t just happen. We also need to do a better job of utilizing influencers and social media platforms to not only increase the visibility of the National championship meet, but of the sport as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>Track and field produces some of the most dynamic, visually extraordinary athletes in moder sports. However, without a compelling event product, aggressive marketing, and strict athlete I accountability, even a championship hosted in the center of New York City will play to empty seats. We&#8217;ve proven that. It is time for USATF to embrace professional standards and deliver a meet worthy of its world-class talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The US Track &amp; Field\u00a0 Championships have come and gone, and that phrase alone pretty much describes them. They happened. There were a handful of exciting races. Noah Lyles stepping on the gas and blitzing to a 9.79 win. Melissa Jefferson Wooden doing the same in the 200m in 21.69. A photo in the 110H finding Cordell Tinch 13.00 an eyelash ahead of Bradley Franklin&#8217;s 13.00. Unfortunately, the meet was more notable for who wasn&#8217;t at the meet. As a majority of defending champions, record holders, and elite competitors elected to bypass the meet with no global championship berths on the line. Resulting in a rather bland overall championships. Reflecting in obviously poor attendance. This was the visual that everyone saw. A visual that didn&#8217;t just show up in New York Thursday thru Sunday, but has been years in the making, and THAT is what I&#8217;m going to discuss today, because I know that many are going to blame it on the change from Eugene to New York, citing Eugene as the only place capable of hosting the meet. When the reality is just the opposite. Let me explain. There were some that said that moving the USA Track &amp; Field (USATF) Outdoor Championships out of Eugene to the nation&#8217;s premier media capital, New York, would prove that track and field could thrive on a grand stage. Instead, it exposed a painful truth: location alone cannot fix a fundamentally broken product. Empty stands in a major media market, a missing contingent of marquee superstars, and non-existent public buzz demonstrated that decades of mismanagement, poor scheduling, and brand stagnation have eroded the event&#8217;s cultural standing.\u00a0 For the past decade the attendance in Eugene has dropped precipitously. To well under 4000 per day in recent editions. Finally prompting USATF to take a years reprieve and host in New York. However, bleachers were largely vacant, ambient crowd noise was sparse, and local visibility across the tri-state area was virtually zero. The event felt less like a premier national championship and more like an obscure regional qualifier. The failure in New York highlighted three core systemic failures: &nbsp; 1. The &#8220;Eugene Bubble&#8221; Hangover &amp; Erased Brand Recognition For approx two decades, USATF repeatedly used Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, as its default location. While Eugene possesses a passionate local running subculture, hosting the premier national meet there year after year isolated the sport from mainstream America. By defaulting to &#8220;TrackTown USA,&#8221; governing officials neglected the hard work of building regional fanbases, local media relationships, and event production capabilities in major metropolitan areas. When the meet finally moved to New York, there was no foundational brand awareness or local infrastructure to build upon. 2. The Star-Power Void: An Event Abandoned by Its Own Stars A sports championship cannot attract paying fans if its marquee stars do not show up. In New York, an alarming number of top-ranked U.S. athletes\u2014Olympic medalists, world record holders, and global fan favorites, bypassed the meet entirely. Without guaranteed appearances by household names, general sports fans have zero incentive to buy tickets or tune into broadcasts. 3. Non-Existent Marketing &amp; Zero Local Activation In a city that demands aggressive, high-impact promotion to capture attention, the championship\u2019s marketing footprint was completely invisible. There were no subway takeovers, no digital billboard campaigns in Times Square, no grassroots pop-ups in local running clubs, and no synergy with mainstream New York sports media outlets. Expecting New Yorkers to simply discover a niche track meet by accident was an organizational fantasy. As Erin Brown recently said online, hire some real ninjas and let ninjas do what they do, because clearly no one at USATF understands how to market the sport. So, why do athletes skip the meet, and why do fans stay home? Let&#8217;s start by talking money. Prize money at the U.S. Championship remains pathetically\u00a0 low compared to international Diamond League meets or other meets. With first place earning $8,800! If you are not on the podium, fourth place earns $3,300 down to $1,000 for seventh. After paying the costs of going to the meet, you barely make anything, with most athletes losing money. Top athletes view the national championship as a high-risk, low-reward obligation rather than a lucrative career accomplishment. If there is no championship team on the line, why go? That&#8217;s not how athletes should see the country&#8217;s top meet of the year, as a financial loss. As for fans, let&#8217;s be honest. Events are spread across 4 long days with massive multi-hour lulls, designed primarily for official operational convenience rather than spectator engagement. Two of those days are work days for most fans, who we ask to take time from work to sit through hours of low-stakes preliminary heats in the summer heat. Similarly casual viewers turn off broadcasts that are full of names they do not know, in races that do not matter. Fans want big names and finals.\u00a0 So, how do we make the meet INVITING for both athletes and fans? That&#8217;s really the question on the table. Fixing the U.S. Track and Field Championships will require radical reform, not incremental tweaking. USATF must treat the meet as a marquee entertainment franchise rather than a mere administrative selection trials, which is how it&#8217;s been treated in the past. That means that things like location, matter. Marketing the meet properly, matters. You can&#8217;t simply say, we&#8217;re having our championship and expect people to just come watch. The following \u00a0blueprint outlines how to restore attendance, athlete participation, and public interest. &nbsp; Enforce &amp; Fund Athlete Participation Restructure athlete national team funding and USATF Tier-1 support so that participation in the Outdoor National Championship is mandatory unless sidelined by verified medical grounds. Do so by making substantial increases in prize structure. Quadruple the championship prize pool by securing dedicated event-level corporate sponsors. Winning a national title should carry a minimum $50,000 to $100,000 payout, making it financially unviable for stars to skip the meet. Making the finals, and specifically the podium, should do substantially more than subsidize your costs of participating in the meet! It should be a real payday, in line with a Diamond League competition. Frankly more given the multiple rounds structure of the meet. I&#8217;m also suggesting Direct Revenue Sharing. Introduce a ticket revenue share and merchandise royalty program for participating athletes, transforming competitors into financial partners who actively promote the event. Develop a Modernized Fan First Event Format\u00a0 Create a compressed 2-Day Fast-Paced Window taylored to both fans and television. Eliminate bloated multi-day schedules. Restructure the championship into a tight, 2.5-hour action-packed window on Friday evening and Saturday night, delivering nothing but\u00a0 final-round excitement. All early rounds can be held on Wednesday and Thursday. Stream the rounds for the true fans, but the streamlined finals should be on major TV channels and platforms so that they are universally available. This also ensures must attend days on Friday and Saturday Basically stars only events. Think NCAA Regionals on Wednesday, Thursday. NCAA Championships on Friday and Saturday. To protect athlete health and guarantee star power on peak TV days, reigning World and Olympic medalists should be granted an automatic bye past opening preliminary rounds directly into the semi-finals. This optional privilege rewards global success, reduces injury risk, and keeps household names fresh for high-stakes weekend broadcasts. Meanwhile, opening rounds on Wednesday and Thursday create compelling narratives as contenders fight for the remaining spots to challenge the champions, setting up clear, high-drama rivalries heading into the weekend. Preliminary rounds (held Wednesday\/Thursday) proceed normally, advancing a predetermined number of athletes from the field to join the seeded medalists in the semi-finals. The standard 16- or 24-athlete semi-final field size remains intact. Lane Assignment &amp; Seeding: Seed bye-earners into top-tier center lanes for the semi-finals based on their world ranking or season&#8217;s best (SB), rewarding proven excellence while maintaining fair heat distribution. With the stars now not competing in the opening round, create a fan friendly event on Thursday. A &#8220;Meet the Stars&#8221; type event. Fan signings, pictures, etc. Conduct a live press conference, with post press conference interviews. Let&#8217;s look for ways to get the athletes engaging with the public prior to the final two big days of competition. Yes, Sha&#8217;Carri, Noah, and Gabby are known. We need to get more faces and names into the public sphere. Strategic Venue Rotation &amp; Local Activation Engine Finally we need\u00a0 to develop a 4-Year Major Metro Rotation for the championship meet. Establish a fixed, rotating circuit among major metropolitan markets with established track facilities (e.g.,New York, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta). Announce venues 3 years in advance to build local corporate sponsorship. Announcing that the meet was going to be in New York months before the competition was in no way a sufficient lead up. Just as World Championships are announced years in advance, so should National Championships. Local organizers need time to develop partnerships with running clubs, local high schools, community colleges, and four year schools. The sport needs to create more grass roots activities in those cities it plans to host Nationals, also cities if would like to host gold level events. We must do a better job of cultivating our fan base. A fan base is grown it doesn&#8217;t just happen. We also need to do a better job of utilizing influencers and social media platforms to not only increase the visibility of the National championship meet, but of the sport as a whole. Track and field produces some of the most dynamic, visually extraordinary athletes in moder sports. However, without a compelling event product, aggressive marketing, and strict athlete I accountability, even a championship hosted in the center of New York City will play to empty seats. We&#8217;ve proven that. It is time for USATF to embrace professional standards and deliver a meet worthy of its world-class talent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[124],"class_list":["post-3012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-usatf"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-MA","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3024,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=3024","url_meta":{"origin":3012,"position":0},"title":"World U20 &#8211; The Future Is Bright","author":"CHill","date":"August 15, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The just concluded World U20 Championships was easily one of my favorite meets of the year. This is what the sport looks like whenever we get our best together to compete. A reminder that this should constantly be our goal, looking for ways to get our best athletes on the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"DeLeon\"","block_context":{"text":"DeLeon","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?tag=deleon"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_0276-150x150.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2640,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=2640","url_meta":{"origin":3012,"position":1},"title":"NCAA Preview","author":"CHill","date":"June 7, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"We're a day out from the NCAA Championships and I think I'm nearly as nervous as the athletes and teams are! Based on what I've seen during the conference and Regional competitions, there should be some serious fireworks in Eugene this week, because this year, we've got serious matchups in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Alfred\"","block_context":{"text":"Alfred","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?tag=alfred"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/8B001528-F1AD-4A25-9251-85E8B3ABAC57_1_102_o-150x150.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2381,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=2381","url_meta":{"origin":3012,"position":2},"title":"NCAA Championships Review","author":"CHill","date":"June 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"It's June, and there have been track meets being run all spring. But the weather has been horrible up to now, and results have been scattered. It seems like every meet has been \"so-so\" with the occasional \"wow\" race thrown in. Like we had Michael Norman scream 43.45 at MtSac.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Annelus\"","block_context":{"text":"Annelus","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?tag=annelus"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/Placeholder_thumb-150x141.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1575,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=1575","url_meta":{"origin":3012,"position":3},"title":"Aries Merritt Best in Berlin","author":"CHill","date":"September 2, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"He doesn't get the biggest headlines - those seem to be reserved for Jamaican sprinters Usain Bolt and Yohan Blake. He hasn't had the greatest individual performance this season - that was easily David Rudisha's barrier breaking 1:40.91 800 in London. And he didn't have the greatest performance we've seen\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Berlin\"","block_context":{"text":"Berlin","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?tag=berlin"},"img":{"alt_text":"Aries Merritt","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/Aries-Merritt_thumb.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2897,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=2897","url_meta":{"origin":3012,"position":4},"title":"Understand the Assignment","author":"CHill","date":"May 13, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The World Relays has come and gone, with a lot of \"unexpected\" finishes left in its wake. After watching the races and the comments made during and after the event, I've come to the conclusion that a lot of people really don't understand the purpose of the meet - including\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"World Athletics\"","block_context":{"text":"World Athletics","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?tag=world-athletics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/2A6245A3-AA6C-4120-AF41-52A4ACA1A12A-150x150.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":406,"url":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=406","url_meta":{"origin":3012,"position":5},"title":"My Vision For the World Championships","author":"CHill","date":"October 5, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Yes, I know it\u2019s October and we just had the opening ceremonies for the Commonwealth Games.\u00a0 But with the majority of top line athletes missing from the Commonwealth, my mind can\u2019t help but fast forward to the next gathering of the world\u2019s best athletes \u2013 the World Championships in Daegu.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=406#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"BERLIN - AUGUST 23:  South Korean dancers perform during the Closing Ceremony during day nine of the 12th IAAF World Athletics Championships at the Olympic Stadium on August 23, 2009 in Berlin, Germany.  (Photo by Martin Rose\/Bongarts\/Getty Images)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/view1.picapp.com\/pictures.photo\/image\/6136639\/12th-iaaf-world-athletics\/12th-iaaf-world-athletics.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3012"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3018,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3012\/revisions\/3018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}