{"id":445,"date":"2011-02-15T10:46:00","date_gmt":"2011-02-15T18:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=445"},"modified":"2011-02-15T10:46:00","modified_gmt":"2011-02-15T18:46:00","slug":"the-daegu-schedule","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=445","title":{"rendered":"The Daegu Schedule"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The World Championships schedule<\/a> is out and is quite different from schedules we\u2019ve seen in the past. The IAAF Competition Committee\u2019s attempt at \u201cmodernizing\u201d the schedule. <\/p>\n

While  \u201cchange\u201d for the sake of change can become a negative rather than a positive \u2013 something done with regularity in this sport \u2013 this schedule is actually a step in the right direction in my humble opinion.<\/p>\n

Many of the changes are cosmetic \u2013 trying to balance the number of finals across each day; keeping evening sessions to 3 hours in length; and scheduling qualifying rounds (i.e. first rounds) for morning sessions only. <\/p>\n

Some however, are much more substantial. The most substantial being the elimination of the \u201cfirst round\u201d of the men\u2019s and women\u2019s 100 & 200 \u2013 at least for the truly elite! In it\u2019s place will be a \u201cpreliminary\u201d round in which those athletes that have not met the \u201cA\u201d or \u201cB\u201d standard compete to attempt to get into the \u201cquarterfinal\u201d round. While many are already complaining that this will deprive fans of seeing Bolt, Gay, Powell, Felix, Jeter, Campbell Brown and other elites in the \u201cfirst\u201d round I think this is one of the two best changes that were made in the schedule. <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s be real. The first round of the sprints is nothing more than a warm up for those athletes that will be contesting the semi finals and finals. Athletes like Bolt, and Gay \u201chold back\u201d while running 10.2x while lesser athletes are struggling to break 11 seconds. It may sound harsh, but the first round is a matter of eliminating those athletes that were going to be eliminated anyway. Running a preliminary round does two things in my opinion. One, it enables the truly elite to spread their energy better through the rounds \u2013 which could ultimately lead to faster semis and finals. Two, it gives the lesser athletes a fighting chance to get out of the first round \u2013 similar level athletes competing against each other. While we get one less round with the elite\u2019s, the rounds we do get should be scorchers!<\/p>\n

The other change that I think is substantial is that the schedule allows for the 200\/400 double. Significant because as the 100 meter times have dropped precipitously, the 200\/400 begins to look a lot more attractive (in my opinion) to many athletes. For example, sprinters like Wallace Spearmon (9.96\/19.65\/45.22) and Xavier Carter (10.09\/19.63\/44.53) who were in the mix in the 100 when 10.10 might land you a spot in a final, might be much better served going with the 2\/4 as opposed to the 1\/2. Same for female sprinters like Allyson Felix (10.93\/21.81\/49.70) and Sanya Richards (10.97\/22.17\/48.70) who would have been forced to try the 1\/2 IF they wanted the opportunity to double, but can now go 2\/4 which is a more natural mix for both, as well as others.<\/p>\n

So overall I think that the IAAF did a good job on this one. The one change that I am having some difficulty with, however, is closing out the meet with the 4×1 and not the 4×4! Sometimes I feel like tradition should trump modernization \u2013 and this is one of those times. Every meet on the planet closes with the 4×4 \u2013 from middle school to high school to NCAA\u2019s to an all comers competition. And with good reason as it can often be one of the most stirring battles of the meet. Closing with the 4×1 is just out of place \u2013 they should have moved the 4×1 to start off the championships! It\u2019s like having Turducken for Thanksgiving \u2013 yes it can be done, but wouldn\u2019t you rather have a nice Turkey?<\/p>\n

And while I\u2019m talking about traditions, one thing I would like to see the meet get back to is running the men\u2019s and women\u2019s events concurrently \u2013 i.e. one followed by the other. It makes the meet rather disjointed for me to have the men\u2019s final of the 100, then have to wait 24 hours to see the women\u2019s final. Running the rounds through the final concurrently makes for a much more flowing experience \u2013 and can lead to a lot more of a dramatic build up to both finals. Especially when you have one exciting run over a distance, only to be followed by another at the same distance \u2013 that is doubly exciting! A Felix \/ Campbell Brown duel over 200 meters followed immediately by a Bolt v Gay dual makes for a day at the track that many would be talking about for the next 24 hours, if not a decade later. To have them on separate days doesn\u2019t spread the excitement but instead dilutes the experience.<\/p>\n

Allowing the 200\/400 double and eliminating the first round in the sprints are steps in the right direction however. And I do applaud the IAAF on those moves, as they do begin to modernize the World Championships schedule. Now if we would just make it a true World Championships by getting away from the Olympic ideal that everyone should have a chance to compete and make it for the top athletes only in each event, THEN we would be really headed in the right direction. A suggestion I made<\/a> several months ago along with a few other modernization ideas.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see how the new changes work. Let me know what you think about the new changes. Like em or hate em?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The World Championships schedule is out and is quite different from schedules we\u2019ve seen in the past. The IAAF Competition Committee\u2019s attempt at \u201cmodernizing\u201d the schedule. While  \u201cchange\u201d for the sake of change can become a negative rather than a positive \u2013 something done with regularity in this sport \u2013 this schedule is actually a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_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":[],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-7b","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445","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=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}