NY Times: Indoor Worlds = Weak
Is a world championship without the world’s best, truly a championship? This is the question posed by the NY Times in their coverage of Valencia 2K8.com — in an editorial, I might add. (Now that’s some serious ink.) And, if you ask me, it’s a pretty fair question. Championships are held to weed out the riff-raff and allow the very best in a sport to elevate themselves. They are the centrifuge of life, and the champions are the yield of this, this…. reverse emulsion! (The athletes even provide their own centripetal acceleration!)
So, if you hold the World Championships and Jeremy Wariner isn’t running the 400, and Kenny Bekele isn’t running the 3k, what do you have?
Just another entry in the long line of local charity 5k’s. Only with slightly faster times. And fewer free race tee-shirts. But more Clydesdales. And on a track. To be clear: this isn’t a case of the St. Louis Cardinals lucking into a World Series crown in 2006, because a better team forgot the basics of throwing the ball and catching it. Or, for example, the University of Cincinnati making the Final Four in 1992 simply because all of the higher seeds in their region were cleared out in early upsets. The Cardinals couldn’t help that the Tigers’ imploded, just as it’s not Tariku’s fault that big brother didn’t race in Valencia. Likewise, you can’t blame whoever it was that won the 400 in Valencia, for Jeremy Wariner no-showing. (Just kidding, Canadians… I have enough respect for your athletes to know that it was probably Wayne Gretzky.) The difference here is the system - the participation of the top teams makes the World Series a championship, and the World Series dictates the participation of the top teams because it is a championship. (It’s a conceptual, a conceptual… perpetual motion machine!) Clearly, Valencia — like many past Indoor World Championships — was a championship in name only.
Now, I’ve seen Beijing 2K8.com alternately blamed for top athletes skipping Indoor Worlds to focus on The Games, and credited for turning them out for a Spanish-style tune-up. (Note: mind your use of that phrase, as it means something totally different in certain parts of the world.) So, let’s call this being an Olympic year, a wash in that department. And, in response to Episode 6 of The Toni & Matt Show, Trackshark’s Tom Borish commented that the winter season is cluttered and hard to follow, anyway. So I say, time for drastic measures: if they can’t coax all the big dogs out, the IAAF should just end the experiment that is the Indoor World Championships. There, I said it.
What say you?
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March 13th, 2008 at 1:16 pm |
Jeremy,
Before the IAAF instituted the indoor world champs in 1991, the U.S. indoor circuit was a thriving moveable feast. From San Diego and L.A. to Toronto, Boston, New York, and Cleveland, the boys and girls put on a grand, if ultimately meaningless show during the base months. With the World Indoor Champs have come the new indoor facilities all over Europe, and the subsequent demise of the U.S. circuit notwithstanding the Visa Championship series in Boston, New York, Fayetteville,and back to Boston. Why haven’t the World Champs ever come to Madison Square Garden in NYC? Has the IAAF written off the U.S. market? The old power voting blocks have long gone, for sure.
So what we have to ask is who is making money on staging the world indoors at present? IAAF? Athletes? They make $40K for a win, but if the best don’t show, then it’s obviously not enough. In other words, it may not actually be about the best athletes. Follow the money and see who’s really winning.
March 13th, 2008 at 1:44 pm |
I thought Cincy made the Final Four in ‘92 because no one wanted to D them up for fear of getting stabbed with a shiv.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:01 pm |
You’ve struck at the seamy underbelly - it was the threat of shiv-ing… mixed with the fear that their horses would get punched in the face.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:48 pm |
The reason no major IAAF events have come to the U.S. since World Cross in ‘92 is that one of the IAAF’s requirements is that prize money be *net* and not *gross*. Which is to say that if (as was the case in Valencia) first place is $40,000, the IAAF pays $40,000 to the athletes, and the LOC (I think) pays the relevant taxes. Filling the gap between gross and net is one of the reasons the USA didn’t actually host the World Cup at Stanford the way they were supposed to in… what was it, ‘02? USATF simply didn’t have the $$ to stage the meet.
If you’re looking for an interesting take on how international money can warp a domestic sporting situation, though, check out this editorial in the London *Times* on the UEFA Champions League.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/martin_samuel/article3532949.ece
March 14th, 2008 at 10:34 am |
A World Indoors meet should be held every other year or every year EXCEPT Olympic years OR every four years in the year that there is no outdoor worlds or olympics (I like this choice the best). The top “dogs” will show up for it when theres no big championship outdoors I think. Plus, it will open up the other three years to make indoors a fun exhibition (like it was in the olden days apparently, i wasnt there).
March 14th, 2008 at 10:40 am |
Also, it is NEVER an accident when a team makes the final four. the ‘92 bearcats were a special team and deserve full credit for beating some great teams all year (only 4 losses) and a magical run in the tournament (shut down a little guy named ‘penny,’ ever heard of him?).
As for the shiv/horse punching comment, much like prison, when youre in the ncaa tournament, you have to make a bold move to show you mean business. suffice it to say the ‘92 bearcats meant A LOT of business.
March 16th, 2008 at 1:49 pm |
Sez Me: NCAA Indoor Championships = Nonexistent?
I thought I’d find a brief recap of this weekend’s NCAA Track & Field Indoor Championships somewhere on the tube but speaking of basketball, the networks are all awash with Mad Hoops Disease AKA March Madness…
March 16th, 2008 at 7:36 pm |
Toni, the first World Indoors were in 1987 (not 1991), and were held in Indianapolis.
What no one is willing to admit is that indoor track is pre-season track. Some events attract all the top talent (HJ, PV, SP), some events attract part of the top talent (middle distances, high hurdles) and other events attract none of it (sprints).
The World Indoors by itself did not lead to the death of the US indoor circuit. (Not death, really, more like the wounds suffered by the Black Knight in Monty Python & the Holy Grail.) An obsession with times over bona fide competition also hurt the mainly 160y tracks we had. But that wasn’t it.
The only pro-level meet in my area of the country was the Cleveland Knights of Columbus meet. I’ve got the program from the final meet (1995) in front of me, and it’s stunning what a great slate of international stars there were. It died only because sponsorship couldn’t be found. 1995 was the year that USATF leadership was excited because a series of four meets were going to be on TV, and I think two of those four never took place again. As bad of leadership as we talk about now, back then it was atrocious.
We’re just reaping what was sown.
March 18th, 2008 at 9:59 pm |
I don’t get the idea of indoor championships. Indoor track isn’t a different discipline from outdoor track in the way cross country is different from track. It’s like having an indoor and outdoor Super Bowl.
March 20th, 2008 at 11:14 am |
Sez Me: NCAA Indoor Championships = Revisited
It is airing today - Thursday, March 20th - at 1pm PDT on ESPN2 (check your local listings).
That said, I stand corrected in terms of my above comment where I thought they weren’t going to show it period. The network obviously just wanted to hold off a bit so they could perfectly package the meet and air it early afternoon on a weekday in order to reach the widest viewing audience!