the worst major-meet scheduling ever?

[26mi235]

Re: the worst major-meet scheduling ever?

Isn't it strange how the NFL's four best teams play the week before the Super Bowl? And baseball players are challenged almost every night, with only a day off for travel, before the World Series?

I thought that football had two weeks before the Super Bowl. As for baseball, they are up against the calendar in multiple ways. They could build in several down days but then there would be fewer (revenue) games in the regular season. As it is, if teams get swept there is a hiatus. I just read the biography of Sandy Koufax and he famously pitched with two days rest in the World Series (Twins?) and the pennant race before it, I think.

[Ned Ryerson]

Re: the worst major-meet scheduling ever?

I do not think the over 2 weeks of inactivity is healthy for the sport. Not everyone makes their national teams, so there is no reason to have these huge gaps. More to the point I believe the gap is so pronounced this year because the DL has made meets sparse. Where are the Salamanca meets, the Belgian circuit, the small German meets? With the invention of the DL, we have lost the minor meets which leads to less exposure and more dependence on the DL meets. So when London ended, it all ended.
Combined with the lull in the mens sprints and the 1500, there is a gap in marketing. Again, this adds to the 19 days of nothingness. London seems like it was 3 weeks ago, not 1 week.
Someone mentioned golf, almost all the players play the week before a major to get a rhythm, Tiger always does. In comparison, Jeshua Anderson is at the World University Games this week to compete. He is over a second faster than the entire field, but he wanted a race I assume.

I think it's important to keep in mind that a significant number of the athletes who just miss the cut for their team at Worlds don't find out until right about this time, so many of them are preparing and planning their racing as if they're going.

I don't think there's the demand for a major meet for this lull, loaded with athletes who didn't make their federation's cut for Worlds. There are meets going right now (like Leuven) but they're at the level that I would guess is possible, with nearly all the major stars focused on Worlds.

What I DO miss is the post-post season Asian circuit that has completely shifted to May. It was good to have the well to do Super Meet, Daegu and Shanghai at the second half of September, both for guys who got a late start and came on strong at the end, and for people who performed exceptionally well at the major championship and could do well for themselves in those last two weeks of the season.

[tandfman]

Re: the worst major-meet scheduling ever?

I believe the gap is so pronounced this year because the DL has made meets sparse. Where are the Salamanca meets, the Belgian circuit, the small German meets?

The EAA calendar shows 12 invitational meets in the two weeks following the London DL, including meets in Belgium and Germany. Plus many national championships.

[gh]

Re: the worst major-meet scheduling ever?

there are invitationals and there are invitationals: T&FN got dire warnings from agents back at the beginning of the year that meaningful non-DL competition was becoming an endangered species. And boy, were they spot-on.

Think minor-league baseball. Once MLB went coast-to-coast and televised games became the norm, a once-wonderful structure almost completely collapsed. The IAAF wouldn't admit to it, but the same thing, I fear, is now happening to a once vibrant secondary circuit.

You need only look at the latest Track Newsletter to see the quality of "competition" that is available, particularly to Americans. It just ain't there.

(And I'm the elitist pig who cares about little beneath the highest echelons of the sport, at least when it comes to personal viewing pleasure. What we're talking here is the cannibalization of the sport. My column in the magazine a couple of months back talked about the collapse of competitive domestic opportunities for the "average" pro in the U.S. in May. Whatever starts in the U.S. moves to Europe. You have been warned.)

[tandfman]

Re: the worst major-meet scheduling ever?

Invitational meets in Europe, both big and small, have been disappearing from the calendar for decades. The current economic conditions there these days can only make things worse.

[gh]

Re: the worst major-meet scheduling ever?

Given the current exchange rates, Euro meets can buy American athletes with pocket change :mrgreen:

(I'm still suffering from sticker shock)