Who would get more pub?

[Guest]

Who would get more attention from Track and Field News?

A) An American hurdler or sprinter breaking the world record in the Olympic final...

or

B) An American miler who scored a bronze medal in a slow and tactical Olympic 1500m where three people fell..

I'll go with 'B'. T&F News would go nutso if one of the American 3:36-type guys made the podium.

[gh]

Re: Who would get more pub?

wrong

[Jon]

Re: Who would get more pub?

I don't know which one TFN (the publication) would pay more attention to, but this forum would give way more attention to the latter.

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

Despite the Gabe/Webb mania that keeps flaring up on these boards, this original question is just foolish. Of COURSE a sprint/hurdle WR would get vastly more attention than a mediocre 1500 performance. I seem to recall, for example, that there was a good deal of board "chatter" earlier this summer when A. Johnson went under 13.00...

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

I would say B).
Just because, reading T&F News for years and
years, I have often felt some kind of mystical
search for the next new Jim RYUN through any
emergent unknown talents (the mirage Alan WEBB)
at the expense of so many deserving authentic
champions from other events.
This reminds me sometimes of these medias who
served a poor wine barrel up for public
consumption pretending to have found the new
great white Hope from heavyweight boxing...

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

>wrong

Gee, I seem to recall gh writing something like the following: "The mile is an easy sell. We'll scream to the high heavens that yes we favor the mile."

The original question is a close call, but I'm inclined to go with choice B. Just consider the attention that Webb got in high school compared to what Gatlin got in college.

[tafnut]

Re: Who would get more pub?

It has been demonstrated over and over that the majority of track fans, especially those who are media-friendly (RW much?) are decidedly pro-distance. The best theory as to why this is, is the one that points out that 'everyone' can run a mile, but how many can pole vault, throw a hammer or hurdle 42" barriers? The mile is still the magical event and although I (my priorities are, in order: jumps, hurdles, throws, sprints, middle distance, distance . . . walks [ mjr :-) ] would rather read about a), I bet most people would be all over b).

[Conor Dary]

Re: Who would get more pub?

If there is a bias towards the mile in media and public popularity its probably because it is the last event measured in a distance that is still used in the U.S. I don't think it is any coincidence that the decline of popularity of TandF in this country coincides with the introduction of metric running distances. The 100 yard dash (and the 440, 880, 2 mile etc.) is something the average Joe can relate to that the 100 meters never can. When Ivory Crockett ran the first 9.0 100 yards the attention he received was huge to the neglect of Montgomery's 9.78.

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

If you knew the people making the editorial decisions, you would know that this is not a close call at all. The victory in WR time would be the clear choice.

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

The three who fell: Allen Johnson, Anier Garcia and that Lativan guy... someone forgot to tell them that their race ended 1400m earlier. For an American to place in the 1,500m under the premise that three fell, it may as well be three hurdlers since youäre trying to make the distinction between a hurdle wr and a slow 1,500m bronze medal with three fallen athletes.

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

>Who would get more attention from Track and Field News?

A) An American
>hurdler or sprinter breaking the world record in the Olympic
>final...

or

B) An American miler who scored a bronze medal in a slow and
>tactical Olympic 1500m where three people fell..

I'll go with 'B'. T&F News
>would go nutso if one of the American 3:36-type guys made the podium.



You're wrong. Record + gold = much more than pokey runner gets a little lucky. Remember, second place is the first loser.

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

"I don't think it is any coincidence that the decline of popularity of TandF in this country coincides with the introduction of metric running distances."

As much as I dislike (i.e., am too lazy to learn) the metric system, I can categorically state that the move to metric distances, be they 50m or 10000m, has NOTHING to do with T&F's 'decline'. A '10-flat guy' is a common term. Yes, the mile is more popular in the US, but it's also popular in Norway, and those guys are pretty metric. The 200 or 800, and ESPECIALLY the 5K and 10K (much more than the very odd 3 and 6 miles) are just as popular as the 220 and 880 were.

There are numerous threads that explicate the 'decline,' but I really think it's more of an eclipse, as the NBA and NFL have overshadowed everything else, including MLB. We have not marketed ourselves as well as we could/should have, and that's the one thing I'm 'patiently' waiting for Mr. Masback to rectify.

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

While I agree with a good deal of the above, I honestly think that the shift to metric has contributed to the falling popularity of t&f in the U.S. I ran a 10k road race back in 1978 or so that was trying to be "progressive" by giving metric splits (1500, 3000, etc.) instead of mile splits. I distinctly remember that we all lost about 10 seconds at each checkpoint as we tried to do the mental math to figure out how fast we were "really" going. The US will be truly metric when we are used to talking about kilometer splits in races like this...and that point will come in about the year 2350.

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

The more I think about this, the more emphatic I feel about the relationship between the imposition of the metric system on the sport and its decline in the U.S. While there is a small "real" difference between, say, 400m and 440 yards or 800m and 880 yards, there actually is a large psychological difference. Everyone knows (or feels they know) what a quarter mile or a half mile is, while 400 meters has to be explained ("you see, it's just 3 yards short of a quarter mile...") and in the time it takes to explain it, the typical Americans' eyes glaze over and it somehow doesn't register. "Almost" or "nearly the same" just don't cut it: there is enough difference to make metric distances seem alien or odd. Like it or not, the shift to metric has had a very real impact on the popularity of the sport in the U.S. While it's true that road runners understand the 5 and 10k distances, as I pointed out above, these distances have REAL meaning because we automatically break them down into MILE pace!

[Guest]

Re: Who would get more pub?

That may be true about older fans, but the newer generations, 1980 on, are used to it now. Even though I don't want us to switch to measuring metrically, the change to metric racing was a blessing to the true track fan - no more conversions.