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Conway
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 25 Aug 2001
Posts: 3570
Location: Northen California
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 Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2002 9:07 am Post subject: |
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| pnb470 wrote: | | I would hope that such a plan would keep people from avoiding each other all season long. |
Well I believe the gold is worth about $500,000 ... Only a few athletes can earn that in a year without winning the Golden League, so I would think that would be a hell of an incentive to show up and go for it ... Plus they get appearance fees on top of it ... For most of the athletes it would be their greatest opportunity to earn a major pay day ... And theoretically there would be no clear winner until the final competition in Berlin !!!
Under the current system you have about a half dozen or so that are "in it" after the first meet ... That means everyone elses can do what they want without impact ... More of a disincentive if you ask me ... The other way each match ups take on more significance ... Can you imagine Montgomery, Greene, and Chambers trully fighting it out over 7 meets with a chance at half a million dollars ?!?!?
Conway |
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2002 9:47 am Post subject: |
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If they avoided each other, they'd be missing the meets that are worth the points, so they'd hurt their own ranking in the process. Other than the logistics of making the ranking system consistent and accurate, I don't see any weaknesses to the plan.
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Conway
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 25 Aug 2001
Posts: 3570
Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2002 10:01 am Post subject: |
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| Dan wrote: | If they avoided each other, they'd be missing the meets that are worth the points, so they'd hurt their own ranking in the process.
Dan |
Exactly ... If money is the greatest motivating factor ... And money is in limited supply ... Then make it work to the advantage of the meet promoters and fans ... Not just to the athletes ... Make them earn their money ... What we are talking about her is a bonus for excellence ... And part of that excellence is in how well and against whom you compete ... Or at least it should be ... This tries to force that issue - to the benefit of the fan - the one ultimately footing the bill ...
Conway |
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2002 10:40 am Post subject: |
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Here's a Devil's Advocate view that just struck me: Seeing as how fields are pretty full at most meets already, creating this incentive based system would seem to get more of the top athletes showing up at each meet, thus squeezing out many of the up and comers or mid-level athletes from decent lane draws or even getting into the meet. I doubt too many meets will want to add a bunch of B and C heats, as they already seemingly want to shorten meets by cutting half the events... Would this hurt athlete development, or would there be enough smaller meets for them to still compete in?
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Conway
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 25 Aug 2001
Posts: 3570
Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2002 11:00 am Post subject: |
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We're only talking about the 7 Golden League meets here ... We've still got the full slate of other Gand Prix I meets plus the Grand Prix II meets ... And those that aren't classified as either ... And frankly not too many second tier athletes are getting Golden LEague invites anyway ...
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
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Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2002 11:13 am Post subject: |
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Wouldn't such a system work best if it included some of the bigger Grand Prix meets, though? 7 meets is a bit skimpy to base an entire season on -- I would think most athletes would prefer 10-12 meets count toward their final ranking.
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Conway
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 25 Aug 2001
Posts: 3570
Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2002 11:24 am Post subject: |
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Well ... I look at it like this ...
It's more opportunities than Supr Bowl or World Cup winners get !!!
It spans the length of the European season ... Giving opportunity to go bakc to the drawing board if you need to ... REst some if you need to ... Use lesser meets as preparation if you need to ...
You know exactly what matters ... Where to run; when to be ready ... No different than having the Olympics or Worlds determine rankings - which TFN typically does ... And speaking of TFN they only focus on a few competitions each year in their biased system which has become the world standard ...
Bottom line ... The most prestigious meets in the world become the determineing factor !!!! And the worlds top athlete gets half a million for their efforts .... On top of whatever else they ahve earned over the season ... Ccomcpetition becomes meaningful under the structure of a professional format ... Something that has been missing for a couple of decades now ...
Conway |
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Sat Sep 07, 2002 10:40 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | I also think that that type of format might get the likes of the GReeks to step outside and prove themselves more than one time a year !!! |
This is rather off-topic, but it relates to Conway's mentioning of the Greek sprinters. This was just posted to the t-and-f list:
| Quote: | Subject: World Cup trivia question
in the last Cup (J-burg '98), who led off the Europe team in the men's 4x4?
He produced just a feeble 47.3.
In '93 he had set a Greek Record of 45.70. He then basically disappears from the scene until '98 when he lowers the record to 45.60. Ran 20.50 and 45.66 in '99, then.....
Well, now, closing in on 30 next June, you know him as the Olympic and World 200 champ and this year's fastest 200 guy, Konstadínos Kedéris.
Had never seen mention of the relay leg in any of his bio material, just found him by coincidence while doing some pre-Madrid research. |
Having a system that encouraged, if not demanded, regular participation from the top athletes would either expose dubious characters or go a long way toward dispelling the suspicion that invariably follows from eyebrow raising stats like the above...
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Conway
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 25 Aug 2001
Posts: 3570
Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2002 7:56 am Post subject: |
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And people wonder why certain athletes are questioned about their performances !!!!! Cutting half a second off a 200 PR is just NOT a normal thing that happens in the sport ... Especially when you are cutting from a level like 20.50 ...
Of course I complinaed about the same kind of improvement (actually more dramatic) from onen Carl Lewis about 20 years prior ... Of course the difference was that Carl was an American ... His single year improvements in 1981 were off the charts, greater than Ben's a few years later ... But no one cared ....
One of those things about the sport that irks me - in spite of being American ... There should be equity across the board when it comes to testing, questioning, suspicions, etc .... But that is for another thread ....
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Micah Ward
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 08 May 2000
Posts: 2152
Location: Hot&humid, GA
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| Posted: Sun Sep 08, 2002 10:33 am Post subject: |
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Christmas wish list?
I guess it would be tastless and tacky for me to wish that certain female athletes compete in thongs? 
Aside from that...I agree with the comments about some type of system to encourage more head to head competition of the best.
I would also like to see more publicity and excitement about college cross country and track.
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Distance_Guru
World Class
Joined: 09 Mar 2002
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Location: Nebraska
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| Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2002 4:40 am Post subject: |
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| wrote: | | I would also like to see more publicity and excitement about college cross country and track. |
That would be at the top of my wish list.
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Conway
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 25 Aug 2001
Posts: 3570
Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2002 6:01 am Post subject: |
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Speaking of event scheduling at track meets ... this from the IAAF Web site ...
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World champion Allen Johnson was the winner in the 110m hurdles in a good 13.29. “It was not my best race ever. But I am satisfied after a disappointing season for me. Running under 13.30 is good at the end of the year. At the start of the season I hoped to break the World record of Colin Jackson. The problem is that I could not compete in many races because the 110 hurdles were not scheduled in many meetings. Now my next races will be at Yokohama and the World Cup in Madrid, and I am looking forward to next year.”
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I would gather that more than just Allen are disappointed with the lack of events at many meets ..
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2002 6:58 am Post subject: |
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Interesting that the IAAF would print that on their site, seeing as how they're the primary reason for the disappointment...
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Conway
Olympic Medalist
Joined: 25 Aug 2001
Posts: 3570
Location: Northen California
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| Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2002 7:13 am Post subject: |
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Yep ... I was surprised too ... It appears our thoughts might be rather timely 
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Dan
Chief Pontificator
Joined: 22 Mar 1999
Posts: 9334
Location: Salem, OR
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| Posted: Mon Sep 09, 2002 8:01 am Post subject: |
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On that note, and since pipe dreams would probably fit unde the X-Mas Wish List category, let me share a little something I've been thinking about and only just begun working on. I would like to add a new category to the forums for interaction with important entities within the sport, the three most notable being the IAAF, USATF, and T&FN. It would be a way for us to interact with them, and for them to interact with each other (all in a constructive fashion, of course  ).
Right now, there doesn't seem to be much of a voice for people unhappy with the direction the sport is going, and our complaining about it here does little or no good if no one is listening... What I envision is a separate forum for each such entity that chose to participate. They could ask questions and submit polls (a big public focus group), release updates, etc., and we could provide feedback and petitions or ask questions of our own. I've seen that sort of thing work in more commercially-oriented markets, and I think it could be done here with a bit of creativity.
T&FN and USATF appear to have no means of visitor/customer interaction beyond email links, so it's easy to see how this could be a benefit to them with very little additional work on their part. The IAAF does have a discussion forum of their own, but I get the impression that's just general chit chat and no real interaction is taking place with the people behind the scenes...
Thoughts?
Dan |
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