posted Jun 23, 2008

The sad fact is that European athletes, with the exception of the field events, just can't compete with the US, Jamaica, Africa etc. Also a lot of the best guys don't compete.

Yes, it's good that UK athletics seems to be on the way up from its lowest point a couple of years ago but we have a long, long way to go.

If Europe had the likes of Tyrone Gay, Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell, Haile Gebreselassie(sp.), Bekeli etc. then there would be no need to jazz anything up.

I must say, what I heard of the new changes, I didn't like. 'Devil take the hindmost' will just make the races even slower than they are already with a few sprints at the back of the field. The only obvious advantage is that we may get to see some of the best Swedish athletes - Kluft, Holm, Olsen etc.

The Golden League gets the best athletes because it offers decent prizes, appearance money and incentives to break records. The European Cup needs to do the same.

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posted Jun 23, 2008

Ronmountain - your suggestion is worth exploring!

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posted Jun 23, 2008

My question about the new format is this: will athlete want to come and race/throw/jump in them if it is not going to be a chance to have a proper competition that will act as a prep to a major championships?

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posted Jun 24, 2008

Whilst change may be considered desirable, even inevitable given the current trends, this has to be addressed very carefully, so as not to make the sport look like "It's a Knockout" just to enhance viewing figures. It's probably true that the Grand Prix Meetings over the last 20 or more years is in need or review. I can remember a One Mile Handicap being run at Crystal Palace - with great excitement. Anything to make things less predictable - but NOT change the fundamentals.

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posted Jun 24, 2008

Yeah I think its a great idea. Something new is being tried and its long overdue. Somethings will work and some wont, that life for ya, but I say congrats to the authorities in spicing it up.
p.s. Well done to our teams on the weekend some good 'competative' and promising performances were shown by some of our athletes.

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posted Jun 24, 2008

I don't believe 'devil take the hindmost' will speed up race significantly, or that races magically become more exciting because they're quicker. The "last 4 throws" idea for field events is absurd. It gives the broadcasters the perfect excuse to just show the last four trials because the others don't matter. What happens to field event coverage when one of these sets of four consists of three fouls followed by a 3m long jump or 8m shot putt for 12 dead-cert points?

12 teams? Fine - but have heats and finals for all events up to 800m, over two days for the longer ones. Add some extra points for high places - 16,14,12,10,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1 or similar. And score the blokes and girls together if you like, though this seems like a recipe for restricting wins to a very short list of countries. Apart from that, meddle at your peril...

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posted Jun 24, 2008

Have these ideas been trialled anywhere?
They seem worth a try as the traditional format leads to a lot of unexciting viewing, but presumably it will be reviewed and tweaked if necesary.

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posted Jun 24, 2008

For ABarrie the European Athletics Association are/have been trailing these changes this year.

The Men's Triple Jump test was to-day in Jerez. Five athletes took part, the one with 3 new jumps missed out on the final round, his brother passed and stayed fourth and the other three finished in the same order they were in after round 3 but with lower marks.

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posted Jun 25, 2008

So someone in the throws or jumps could break a world record and not win the event - how crazy is that? If memory serves me correctly, Jonathan Edwards broke the record with his first two jumps, yet under these new rules those would count for nothing in the competition other than qualifying him for the last jump. And if he then gets his last jump wrong or goes 1mm over the board he gets nothing. You're going to get athletes taking safe jumps to ensure they get through or to play the odds for a medal rather than going all-out for their best and risking a marginal foul. Is that really what they want? And what about conditions? What if one jumper in the last round gets a strong following wind whilst the others don't, or if it starts to chuck it down just as the last jumper or thrower prepares? At least with all rounds counting there is a chance for the conditions to even out amongst the athletes.

It seems to me that these rules changes are far more about the governing body of European Athletics trying to enrich itself with lucrative TV deals than about the althletics and the athletes themselves. So a javelin competition spread over 6 rounds isn't exciting enough for TV - doesn't that say more about the audience of couch potatoes than it does about the event? What next? Javelin throwers competing simultaneously from opposite ends? Land mines in the pit below 8m? Crocodiles in the water jump? Why does everything have to resolve itself using the lowest common denominator? I certainly would't want to see anything like this put into the Olympics as I think it would completely devalue 4 years of an athlete's life.

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posted Jun 25, 2008

Could be worse, you could win heat 1 of the 100m into a headwind of 5m/s and then finish 7th as the other heat gets a tailwind of 5m/s

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