WR Line

[Guest]

Since we as track fans are always looking for new ways in which our favorite sport be T.V friendly, I would like to offer a suggestion. I was watching the World swimming championships noticed that during some of the races they used a WR line. This line represented the World Record holder during their race. I am not a fan of swimming but it was fun watching these great athletes chasing an visible world record. This made viewing the race so much more interesting and I even found myself cheering these athletes on and watching the clock.

This would be great for all track races from the 100m to the 5,000m. The drama of watching someone chase down a WR is great! Look at how the first down line has increased the enjoyment of watching a football game. A moving WR line could do the same for track. To most non-track fans, watching a sprint race in particular is difficult because they don't know what to watch for. Seeing a WR line during this years WC 100m would add to the drama, and give the non-track fan something cheer about.

[tafnut]

Re: WR Line

May I offer an alternative? If you have a WR line you will be disappointed 99.9% of the time. How about another more 'managable' one, like 10.00 for the 100 or 3:30 for the 1500. Or 70' for the shot. These are sensational marks and doable at big meets. If the athlete is way beyond the line then you can get excited about the 'prospect' of a WR.

[joel]

Re: WR Line

I believe these effects are incredibly expensive. We only got the tape delayed Golden League in the States after IAAF could find no takers other than ESPN, and still wanted some kind of marketing presence for the American audience. It seems they cut back to only L. Rawson commentating for a couple of those meets, too.

[Guest]

Re: WR Line

i watched it too. excellent graphics, not just the world record line, but the flags for each lane before the start, the splits for the top three at each turn, the immediate flashing of the top three names after the end of the race and the results for the top 8 coming up very quickly. i agree that all of these graphics added tremendously to viewing the event. both announcers were knowledgeable and rarely fumbled for words and rarely had bad calls. the overall presentation i believe had little to with espn (the announcers only), but the graphics were added on to the world feed that often us networks have ignored in previous big track and field meets. abc for example has had the worse camera angles and graphics in the three worlds they have covered. unfortunately they will cover part of this meet too !