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Here’s my feedback on the Millrose Games which I attended on Friday night. Firstly it should be renamed to, “The Millrose High School Games and Invitational”. Despite a cursory look at the schedule I hadn’t realized how high school orientated it was, and what a paucity of top class events there would be. Nothing wrong with that necessarily and I enjoyed it, despite my elitist comments in a previous thread.
These comments are all based on my memory as I forgot to TiVo it and have seen no TV coverage. Firstly Marion. I know she’s had a long break and was obviously going to be rusty but she was not close to where I thought she would be. I was expecting around 7.10-715 as that’s still about 0.2secs down from her pb. Start was obviously very suspect and she looked like she momentarily lost form at about 30m. However she won and beat Torri but if I was one of her main rivals I’d be encouraged. Devers and Johnson both looked fantastic. My main hope for Athens is that Gail finally wins Gold. Woody looked very strong in the 600yds although with that distance I have absolutely no idea whether his time was any good or not. Both high jumps were poor, but because of the tiny area and number of people hanging around the in field, the conditions were very tough for the athletes. Also, in terms of presentation, they had a parade of about 30 past and present Olympians. This in itself was nice, however they literally turned all the lights off just as Charles Clinger was about to make an attempt. Couldn’t they have waited 10 secs? The parade itself took place under very dimmed lights so you could hardly see the athletes.
The shot was very odd. They marked out two lines (straight across, not curved and no indicators of distance) and made a point that there had never been a 70’ throw at Millrose. When Cantwell threw past the furthest line I assumed it was over 70’ as did the crowd and the commentator. When he then threw even further by about a foot I assumed he’d thrown about 21.60-70m and was one of about 6 people in the crowd to yell out. The scoreboard then came up with 68’10”. It was very confusing and I assume that although they were reporting the competition in feet, the lines they’d marked out were 20 and 21m. What on earth is that about? Also they only had 4 throwers with 4 throws each, the competition lasted about 15 mins. It looked more like a demonstration than a competition and, as a field event fan, I almost found it insulting.
The PV was fairly average as well. In the context of another thread all the men wore the same kit (English for uniforms). Hey Nike, do something about that will you. I understand the importance of branding but it just looks boring and unimaginative. When Stacy changed coaches last year and decided to re-vamp her technique I was a little concerned that she’d made a bad decision. Nothing I saw Friday changed that opinion. She had what looked like to me and inordinate amount of flat-out, stripped down, warm-up jumps. Didn’t count them but she had a lot. That to me indicated she was/has been having technical challenges. Again, with the naked eye, it looked to me like she was all over the place coming off the pole. Changing technique when you’re in your 30’s is always going to be a challenge. I hope it’s a decision she won’t regret in Athens.
How long was the track? Looked about 150m which is ridiculous, there were many more falls, collisions, obstructions etc. than you probably saw on TV. For proper pure racing it has to be 200m imho. The crowd was impressive, I heard over 14,000. Not sure what the norm is but it was a lot more than I imagined. I assumed Marion was the reason but was surprised that about 30% left before she raced. Much more than half the crowd were more into the youngsters events. Begs the question are they really into the sport or just supporting friends and family no matter what activity they are doing? Unfortunately, with the drop off of interest in major events I suspect the latter. The people sitting around me were nowhere near as attentive during the invitational events.
Finally the commentating was absolutely appalling. Who were these guys? Obviously knew nothing about what was going on, we’d have been better off with Rawson and Lewis (Carol, not Michael E.)….OK, I’m joking, our hero’s at T&F did a great job and GH looked quite spiffy in his tux! When Bob got an award I half expected Phil Shinnick to run onto the track to protest (Phil, word of warning. In a post last week Bob used the words “malicious” and “defamatory”. I learned Friday that he’s an attorney. I’d be careful in future as he might use “vigorous” next). Would I spend $160 again on two tickets? No, of course not, but if I was in NYC I’d cough up $25 for a cheap seat.
(jeeez...just hit edit and saw how long this was. A new PB (PR) for me...!)
These comments are all based on my memory as I forgot to TiVo it and have seen no TV coverage. Firstly Marion. I know she’s had a long break and was obviously going to be rusty but she was not close to where I thought she would be. I was expecting around 7.10-715 as that’s still about 0.2secs down from her pb. Start was obviously very suspect and she looked like she momentarily lost form at about 30m. However she won and beat Torri but if I was one of her main rivals I’d be encouraged. Devers and Johnson both looked fantastic. My main hope for Athens is that Gail finally wins Gold. Woody looked very strong in the 600yds although with that distance I have absolutely no idea whether his time was any good or not. Both high jumps were poor, but because of the tiny area and number of people hanging around the in field, the conditions were very tough for the athletes. Also, in terms of presentation, they had a parade of about 30 past and present Olympians. This in itself was nice, however they literally turned all the lights off just as Charles Clinger was about to make an attempt. Couldn’t they have waited 10 secs? The parade itself took place under very dimmed lights so you could hardly see the athletes.
The shot was very odd. They marked out two lines (straight across, not curved and no indicators of distance) and made a point that there had never been a 70’ throw at Millrose. When Cantwell threw past the furthest line I assumed it was over 70’ as did the crowd and the commentator. When he then threw even further by about a foot I assumed he’d thrown about 21.60-70m and was one of about 6 people in the crowd to yell out. The scoreboard then came up with 68’10”. It was very confusing and I assume that although they were reporting the competition in feet, the lines they’d marked out were 20 and 21m. What on earth is that about? Also they only had 4 throwers with 4 throws each, the competition lasted about 15 mins. It looked more like a demonstration than a competition and, as a field event fan, I almost found it insulting.
The PV was fairly average as well. In the context of another thread all the men wore the same kit (English for uniforms). Hey Nike, do something about that will you. I understand the importance of branding but it just looks boring and unimaginative. When Stacy changed coaches last year and decided to re-vamp her technique I was a little concerned that she’d made a bad decision. Nothing I saw Friday changed that opinion. She had what looked like to me and inordinate amount of flat-out, stripped down, warm-up jumps. Didn’t count them but she had a lot. That to me indicated she was/has been having technical challenges. Again, with the naked eye, it looked to me like she was all over the place coming off the pole. Changing technique when you’re in your 30’s is always going to be a challenge. I hope it’s a decision she won’t regret in Athens.
How long was the track? Looked about 150m which is ridiculous, there were many more falls, collisions, obstructions etc. than you probably saw on TV. For proper pure racing it has to be 200m imho. The crowd was impressive, I heard over 14,000. Not sure what the norm is but it was a lot more than I imagined. I assumed Marion was the reason but was surprised that about 30% left before she raced. Much more than half the crowd were more into the youngsters events. Begs the question are they really into the sport or just supporting friends and family no matter what activity they are doing? Unfortunately, with the drop off of interest in major events I suspect the latter. The people sitting around me were nowhere near as attentive during the invitational events.
Finally the commentating was absolutely appalling. Who were these guys? Obviously knew nothing about what was going on, we’d have been better off with Rawson and Lewis (Carol, not Michael E.)….OK, I’m joking, our hero’s at T&F did a great job and GH looked quite spiffy in his tux! When Bob got an award I half expected Phil Shinnick to run onto the track to protest (Phil, word of warning. In a post last week Bob used the words “malicious” and “defamatory”. I learned Friday that he’s an attorney. I’d be careful in future as he might use “vigorous” next). Would I spend $160 again on two tickets? No, of course not, but if I was in NYC I’d cough up $25 for a cheap seat.
(jeeez...just hit edit and saw how long this was. A new PB (PR) for me...!)
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