Clueless writing about our sport

[KDFINE]

I was immediately turned off by Fitzsimmon's front page article about the 1959 US - Russian (sorry USSR) Track Meet in Philadelphia when he wrote that "The Russians Are Coming" was a mediocre movie. I guess he was never a movie critic. But on a major story of the meet he was wrong when he wrote that it appeared that Bob Soth finished second in the 10,000 (to Desyatchikov). Everyone knows that it was Max Truex.

[lonewolf]

I don't think the author had ever heard of the sport before.

[tandfman]

Here's an interesting article. The headline might have been (but isn't) An Idiot's Guide To Olympic Track & Field. The article seems to assume that the reader has never heard of the sport at all.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/athletics...hletics-guide/

What earns it a place in this thread is this astonishing bit of mis-information:

>>Gold medals available

45<<

In fact, there are 47. What makes the writer's inability to count to 47 even worse is that this non-fact appears immediately below a listing of all of the events.

[LopenUupunut]

Here's a good one, from the "Daily Nation", linked on the front page:

(This was in the "In Summary", on the left edge)
o Final day of final AK weekend meet promises fireworks at Kipchoge Stadium

o It was on the same track in the Principality that the policeman posted a 1,500m PB of 3:26.69 last July, a mark just 0.69 seconds shy of Hicham El Guerrouj’s world record.

That's just a sloppy summary, not clueless writing as such; Elias Makori seems perfectly aware it was in Monaco.

[Alan Shank]

Here's a good one, from the "Daily Nation", linked on the front page:

(This was in the "In Summary", on the left edge)
o Final day of final AK weekend meet promises fireworks at Kipchoge Stadium

o It was on the same track in the Principality that the policeman posted a 1,500m PB of 3:26.69 last July, a mark just 0.69 seconds shy of Hicham El Guerrouj’s world record.

Hmmmm. I saw this race, and I could have sworn I was in Monaco!!

Elias Makori is the author.
Cheers,
Alan Shank
Woodland, CA, USA