Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

[gh]

At a visceral level, watching Isinbayeva DESTROY the other women in the vault was a stunner (a WR performance was obvious from her first clearance on, and thoughts of 5m reality became apparent at about 4.70). But I still have to temper my thinking with the knowledge that the event is so new, and a significant part of it is still women adapting to better technology (Isinbayeva, by the way, "ran out of pole" at the end and had to order up some new bigger lumber right after the competition).

The TJ world records were interesting enough, but nothing impressed me quite so much as Allen Johnson, who hit a bad patch in the semis and only made it to the final as a time qualifier. Chatter in the booth was that he was toast, but, as somebody said later, "He's Allen Johnson; that's what he does," he dug down deep in the final an hour or so later and just dominated the field with his fastest time ever. He gets my vote.

[tafnut]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

Just in the opinion of someone who saw it (gh or anyone there), do you think the runway was a factor in the TJ WR's? Too much coincidence to think otherwise. There had to be some 'bounce' going on there. yes? no?

[gh]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

I think smart money had both Lebedeva and (particularly) Olsson down as good WR bets going in. Given that there was no particular rewriting of the all-time lists behind them, or even any great rash of PRs, don't think there are any particular statistical anomalies.

Having said that, I was surprised in checking out the track at how much more cushy than a Mondo it seemed to be. (Can't recall what it was made of, not a name I instantly recognized, not that I pay allthat much attention to that side of the sport.) I was a bit surprised it turned out to be as fast as it was.

[Jon]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

>Just in the opinion of someone who saw it (gh or anyone there), do you think
>the runway was a factor in the TJ WR's? Too much coincidence to think
>otherwise. There had to be some 'bounce' going on there. yes? no?



I was there, but I didn't have get a chance to closely inspect the surface! However, looking at the results that were produced on the flat surface of the stadium:

Best competition (in terms of depth) in women's TJ
First time 8 men have been over 8m in a WICh
First time 3 women have been over 6.92m in a WICh
WRs in both men's and women's TJ
WR in women's PV (plus first ever 5m attempt)
Four women under 7.87 in 60mH (best ever!!)
Four men under 7.50 in men's 60mH (only happened once before)

...then it looks as though any event were running is combined with jumping, it produced great results! However, as you say, part of the great scores have to be attributed to the great form that the athletes themselves were in (WRs were definitely on the cards for Lebedeva, Olsson, Isinbayeva). But still, a good few athletes surprised me with the marks they were getting (Kluft, Kotova, Magdelin Martinez, Trecia Smith, Xiang, Wignall, Felicien, Hayes, Ferga, Tomlinson, Beckford, etc.....). All of those were showing good form before the championships, but their marks set were a bit better than what most people expected.

Garry - I didn't know you were in Budapest!! Which hotel were you stopping in? (I have a sneaky suspicion we may have been in the same one)

[gh]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

>>Garry - I didn't know you were in Budapest!! >>

You listened to me for 3 days.

[Jon]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

>>>Garry - I didn't know you were in Budapest!! >>

You listened to me for 3
>days.




Ohhhh!!! THAT was you!!
(The guy who kept saying 6.56 METRES as opposed to SECONDS in the men's 60m, etc....!) Lol!

[gh]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

Yeah, I had a couple of howlers.

[Jon]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

>Yeah, I had a couple of howlers.



Hehe!! I'll let you off - the 60m heats were early in the morning!

Overall the announcing was good. But the organisation of the champs as a whole was relatively dire.

[gh]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

I had bad stuff in the afternoon too, like starting to assign medals in the mLJ halfway through the competition.

The only thing I hoped I was able to accomplish in a setting where the predominant language was incomprehensible to anyone but a native speake--and French was also in the mix, making airtime very limited--was to keep everybody apprised of the top end of the field event competitions as much as possible, since you don't need an announcer to clue you into the racing all that much.

[MJD]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

Hehe!! I'll let you off - the 60m
>heats were early in the morning!

Actually for gh, wouldn't that have been late at night? What is the time difference between the west coast and Hungary-nine hours? That would put the first women's heats in the 60 at 12:30 in the morning.

[Jon]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

>I had bad stuff in the afternoon too, like starting to assign medals in the mLJ
>halfway through the competition.

The only thing I hoped I was able to
>accomplish in a setting where the predominant language was incomprehensible to
>anyone but a native speake--and French was also in the mix, making airtime very
>limited--was to keep everybody apprised of the top end of the field event
>competitions as much as possible, since you don't need an announcer to clue you
>into the racing all that much.



Was it actually your decision to announce the medals during field events? I suppose the officials down at the events themselves should have stopped the competition for a couple minutes whilst medals were being given out, because at numerous times, the crowd would be cheering for field events and would drown out the announcements made for the medal ceremonies at the same time. I trust this wasn't your fault, but it underlines the lax approach to organisation and scheduling at these WICh.

One thing that would have helped in the field events (mainly the women's SP), would have been to actually let the stadium know that certain SP'ers were having their last 1-2 attempts, to really get the crowd behind them. What happened was nothing at all was said, and so probably most of the stadium hadn't even realised that the SP events had finished. Again, I don't know if this was all your fault, as the Hungarian broadcaster was interviewing some Hungarian athlete at the time who had (unsurprisingly) failed to qualify for whatever their event was.

Also, no announcement was made about Naide Gomes winning the pentathlon until 5 minutes after her win, by which time she was nowhere to be seen (she had been ushered off the track and wasn't allowed to do a victory lap). For both the multi events (men's and women's), it would have helped before the final event to have some sort of announcement made, saying how many seconds Naide, Dobrynska, Sebrle, Clay, etc... had to win by in order to guarantee the win. Had I been watching the event at home, then I could find this info out in a matter of seconds on the web, but hardcore fans don't have this sort of info at hand at live meets, and so a little announcement would have been great. No-one really knew who'd won what after the final events of each multis. I seem to remember some announcement along the lines of "the positions all stayed the same anyway" after the women's pentathlon.

Maybe I'm being picky, and most of this probably wasn't your own fault. If you were in Birmingham for the previous WICh, I'm sure you'll agree that overall that was a much better organised event, with a much livelier crowd and a much better atmosphere. Luckily, the numerous great performances in Budapest assured that I went away more than satisfied. It was a great GREAT weekend!!

[Archivist]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

Some excellent questions here that require more time than I have available to provide the in-depth answers that are required. I'll try to get to that later today.

But the short answer is that like every major international championships, all scheduling is programmed to the minute by TV.

[Jon]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

>But the short answer is that like every major international
>championships, all scheduling is programmed to the minute by TV.



That's true, but how can you account for there being such a big difference in terms of organisation between the Birmingham WICh and the Budapest WICh...?

Either Birmingham were spot-on, or Budapest were way off the mark.... maybe both...

[gh]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

Archivist is almost right: TV is the 500lb gorilla that's always in the room. The key is the interface between TV and in-stadium presentation.

Like Archivist I don't have time for in-depth discussions at this point either, but to answer to the difference between Birmingham (at which I was dieing of appendicitis and don't remember much on the details) and Budapest, Alan Pascoe & Co. had control of Brum from top to bottom and was able to craft a fan-friendly atmosphere far more than anyone else has been able to.

The Budapest production was largely driven--as has almost every major championships in last coupla decades--by the desires of the TV producers, with secondary attention going to the lowest common denominator of spectators (not real fans).

Sad part is, who's to say they're wrong? We were discussing the dichotomy of Paris last year, where the stadium production was controlled by French TV and they insisted on loud music during the first lap of every race (even the 400!). Riding home on the metro every night w/ hordes of young Frenchies, they were ecstatic. The grumblings of a few hard-core fans (sigh) tend to fall on deaf ears when the general public is eating it up.

[Pego]

Re: Most Impressive Thing I Saw In Budapest

<they insisted on loud music during the first lap of every race>

Agggh! The pleasure of a root canal.