Peter Taylor urges qualifying standards for masters nationals
Peter Taylor, our dedicated meet announcer, gave a great interview to Peter Magill this weekend. In the course of a 3,300-word Q&A, Taylor revisits the much-debated issue of whether USATF national masters championships should have qualifying standards. He says yes. Magill asked: “Masters athletes sometimes complain about the lack of attention they get from the press, but is there a problem with the lack of attention National Championship events get from the athletes themselves? Our turnout for national meets lags way behind some of the European countries.” Taylor replies: “We must remember that in the U.S., very few athletes see our national masters championships as a ‘must.’ The problem is not one of attraction as much as it is retention.”
Taylor continues:
Go back to old issues of National Masters News and look at the people
who competed in the 1998 and 1999 outdoor championships. I am talking
about women 40-44 and men 40-44, and women 45-49 and men 45-49. I am
here to guarantee you that less than 20% of those who competed in those
age groups in 1998 and 1999 will be taking part as competitors in
Oshkosh.Contrast that with the Senior Games/Senior Olympics, which will be held
in Palo Alto this summer. There, they will be simply inundated with
competitors, all of whom will have been through a qualifying process,
most of whom will be pleased as can be to be representing their states
— and many of whom are thrilled to be returning to this unique event.Our nationals are all-comers meets, and no one can say “I qualified,” or “I’m representing Virginia.” People don’t come back.
We have to have about 30 or 40 meets around the country as qualifying
meets for our nationals. Thus, when people went to Ursinus College in
Pennsylvania in March of this year, they would have found that it was
also a qualifier for the 2010 indoor masters in Boston and the 2010
outdoors in Sacramento.Those who knew about our nationals would be
drawn to Ursinus, and those who simply went to the meet with no
knowledge might say: “I didn’t even know that masters had nationals.
This is exciting. And you have to qualify? Great.” They then hit the
qualifying standard at Ursinus, and they’re on their way.In brief, any program in which there is little publicity, where there
are no standards, and, most important, where there are no state or
regional meets to recruit and ultimately “funnel” people to the
nationals, is doomed to have modest attendance.
I beg to differ.
People might as easily react to qualifying standards with “Gosh no” as “Great.” USATF Masters Track & Field already has an “elitist” rap against it. We need to reach out to average Janes and Joes as well. And I’m not sure that the M40/W40 analysis is adequate. One could just as easily ask: How many current M60/W60 athletes at Oshkosh competed in nationals a decade ago? Probably a lot.
Using the National Senior Olympics as a model doesn’t work either, especially this year.
A friend reminds me that the National Senior Games Association recently decided to essentially turn its Palo Alto event into an all-comers meet.
My friend wrote:
I just received a postcard stating: “GREAT NEWS! The
2009 National Games are now open to all individual sport athletes
(except golf) who participated and finished at a 2008 Qualifying Games.
If you finished your event in 2008 and want to experience the National
Games we have a place for you!” Ummm.This seems to indicate that
registration is down enough that they have thrown open the doors to
all-comers. Of course the USATF masters championships do not have
qualifying standards, but manage to keep participant numbers to a
reasonable level (if the top three 60m runners showed up from every
state, that would be 150 contestants and 19 heats).But the National
Senior Games also does something the USATF masters championships do not
do. They have qualifying rounds on separate days for field events. This
means you have to do the same field event on different days.
Masters track adopted its open-to-all philosophy under David Pain in the late 1960s, and the model has served us well — encouraging novices and former elites alike to get in the game.
If USATF masters nationals aren’t as well known as the Senior Olympics, that’s a different booger altogether — and not one solved by imposing qualifying standards. (And don’t get me started on who would set the standards; people already are mystified by the All-American Standards.)
If qualifying standards are needed to give masters nationals the proper prestige and gravitas, then I guess all those medals and patches awarded over the years have been so much chopped liver. Tell that to Bill Collins or Phil Raschker.
World Masters Athletics puts on world indoor and outdoor meets, and I haven’t heard anyone call its medals tainted because the meets invite all-comers. And which gold would YOU rather have: Lahti or Sydney?
However, I agree with Peter on this point: “Any program in which there is little publicity. . . . is doomed to have modest attendance.” So how do we get publicity?
John Oleski, chairman of the USATF Masters T&F Marketing Committee, described in Reno his plans for expanding our numbers by pushing grass-roots and people-to-people efforts with the help of a DVD called “Forever Fast.” I haven’t seen this DVD yet, but I hope he’ll give more details soon. John also said at the Reno convention last December that USATF CEO Doug Logan has set a goal of doubling masters track ranks within 10 years.
The current USA masters track population is between 9,000 and 10,000, according to a column by national masters Chairman Gary Snyder in the current issue of National Masters News. He also reveals that “We plan to have a fully functioning Web site up and running by the end of 2009. We do not do this as an alternative to the USATF Web site, nor do we want to be classified as renegades. . . . We want the MTF movement to flourish and grow.”
Gary is on the right track. Qualifying standards are not.
26 Responses
Peter’s comments on qualifying standards are compelling – suppose we had a number of qualifying meets around the country- would this encourage more participation in the national USATF meets? Of course we will not know until we try.
Should an effort be made to try this – how about having the various state senior games meets as qualifiers. Almost every state has one of then But – would outdoor meets also act as qualifiers for indoor meets? Believe it or not – there are not a lot of indoor meets open to masters in many areas of the country. And … not all events held at USATF national masters meets are held at Senior Games meets. Would I have to run a 5k road race in order to qualify for a 5k track race outdoors? Where do I run a 3k qualifing race if I live in the sunbelt where there are no indoor meets that are within driving distance? How about the steeplechase- where does one go to qualify for that? There have to be real opportunities for folks to get to a qualifying meet.
Given the farce that is happening with the National Senior Games – hey folks – no late fees, if you just turned up and competed in a state senior games meet – you are now qualified for the Nationals. – more walking in the track 1500m race (the run – not the walk)! How about the pole vault, the multi-events etc – how about the longer race walks? I am less and less impressed with the so-called qualifying standards for the national senior games.
I think it is obvious that the economic recession we are in has contributed to the decline in registration for the National Senior Games.
Regardless- if qualifying standards are imposed – they should be based upon something other than a reading of frog entrails or soggy tea leaves. And – they also need to take into account that having too tough a standard could eliminate many older track and field competitors who still turn up these days. For some of us – qualifying for the National Senior Games really means – turning up at a state games and going through the motions. I am always a sure bet for first place when I am the only one in my age group. Apply a qualifying standard that is based on reality –
But – how about handing out information about the USATF National Masters Meets at ALL of the state games? Not once have I seen anything about the National Masters T & F meets advertised at any of the state games in which I have participated – I have been to NH,ME, MA,RI,NV, and the Huntsman Games – not one brochure, not one ad – nor at the National Senior Games either -been to one of those too.
Better advertising would certainly help increase the quantity of competitors. The local newspapers in Southern Calif. appear not to be willing to support Masters T&F unless we pay for advertising, and they have been unwilling to print anything about the Masters National Championship results. One solution to advertising is to look for additional free website coverage . . . many athletes find Masters T&F while doing web searching (I did).
When I attend All Comer meets in Southern Calif. very few of the parents or the “kids” have every seen or heard of Masters Track & Field . . . the great thing is that the parents, “kids” and coaches are very supportive to Masters athletes during the All Comer meets.
Sorry – I am not a fan of “qualifing standards”
for Masters T&F.
-Jeff Davison
Thanks to Pete Magill for interviewing me. One important error — I said something like the following: “If you have no standards, you can’t have trials. If you have trials, you have to have standards.” Somehow this got reversed in what was printed.
Clearly, the masters should have standards in all of those events in which there are trials. Otherwise, you get the unfortunate situation in which the runners go through a trial to eliminate a single person who can’t do the event. I believe this point was left out of my interview in the interest of keeping it a reasonable length.
I’m in M60, and because of an injury to my right leg I can’t break 2 minutes and 15 seconds in the 400. And yet I could enter Oshkosh in that event. If there were 10 entrants (Oshkosh has a 9-lane track), they would have to get to Oshkosh on Wednesday, spend a restless night, warm up well on Thursday, then run a 400 to eliminate me. Is that what we want? In my 32.4 years in masters T&F I have seen more trials to eliminate one or two people than I care to remember.
I don’t deserve to be in the M60 400 at Oshkosh, and I am not ashamed to say it. Of one thing I am absolutely sure: having standards is not elitist.
Obviously, qualifying standards are the way to go in the future, but to have them without a host of feeder meets around the country (with accompanying publicity) would not work well. Even so, where there are trials in the running events you have to have them.
To say that the “open to all” philosophy adopted by David Pain (and I won the David Pain award for 2008) has served us well is silly when we consider our nationals. In 2000, after more than 30 years of trying, we finally broke 1500 for our outdoor nationals (1503 in Eugene). Nine years later, with huge population growth and the terrific efforts of Bob Weiner and others to give us publicity, we couldn’t even break 980 at Spokane. We need a new model.
And please don’t imply that I am in any way disparaging the accomplishments of Bill Collins and Phil Raschker because they got their awards at nationals with no standards. Who is coming up with stuff like this?
As someone who learned of Masters Track just a few years ago, and has been participating only since 2005, there are some things I don’t understand. I don’t understand why there are so few competitors and spectators, and so little publicity and outside interest when I find the whole scene so interesting and motivating. And I don’t understand the “politics” as it relates to USATF, record-setting, certification, etc.
I do think it’s possible to change, dramatically, the amount of participation, interest, publicity, etc. that Masters Track gets, if that’s what folks want to do. But it would take a bigger vision, coordinated effort, money (donations) and a lot of work. It would take a few visionary leaders to make a proposal, recruit help and money, and devote a good part of their time for a few years.
My personal opinion is that part of the formula for doing this could be feeder meets and qualifying standards. As a non-elite “pretty good” competitor I would welcome standards to shoot for that would add meaning to my effort. We don’t lose but gain participation by the masses with this approach, since anyone could compete in the feeder meets – as Peter says, we’d lose very few current competitors from nationals. When I tell people I’m going to Finland to compete in the World Track and Field Championships they are impressed, but when I explain that all it takes is money, no qualifying, they are puzzled. Standards add value.
I think we should give Pete’s suggestion for qualifying standards a try. For those who seem so strongly against it, let me quote Dr. Phil, “So, how’s it been working for you so far?” Clearly, what we’ve been doing isn’t getting the result we want; that is, increased attention for our sport and increased attendance at our meets.
Re: setting qualifying standards. Why not use the current All-America standards? Good or bad, at least they’re a place to begin. And we should allow anyone who won a medal at the previous year’s nationals to automatically qualify for the current year’s nationals in his/her event.
I think having qualifying meets/standards would raise the status of our sport. It’s one thing to say “I’m going to Nationals” (because I can afford it) and another to say “I qualified for Nationals.” As it is now, “making the finals,” “getting a medal,” and “winning” are potential goals. We could add a fourth: to make the nationals.
So far as getting people to the Nationals etc. I would look at a rule I learned from the real-estate market. Location, Location, Location. I missed quite a few meets back in the 80’s and 90’s and all I heard about was going to the Nationals in Decator, Ill. Buy the time I started getting in shape enough to go to the Nationals they have been bouncing back and forth everywhere. Even if there becomes a central location it will not be central to someone a 1000 miles away. One thing about the Senior Nationals is you get a year or two to save up your money to get there after qualifing. Although I qualified for the Senior National this year. I can afford to go. USATF National’s is closer for me this year. I just have to make sure I stay healthy so I can go. ( Qualified or not ) I graduated to the masters 60 group this year.
Although I see some potential for problems in applying standards to getting into Nationals, I would be willing to give Pete’s idea a try. However, some parts of the country have very little to offer in the way of qualifying opportunities unless they can run in April or May with the college guys. That would be unfair for some one to be asked to qualify so far in advance of a late summer Nationals.
But the main benefit, as I see it, is that it would make the club scoring more meaningful. I’ve always said there should be a minimum standard achieved in order to score for your club but nobody seems to buy into that. Pete’s idea of applying standards to entry would automatically apply to club scoring. Year after year I have seen entries in “soft” (less than a full field) events where the participant obviously has little or no experience. I guarantee those people are there just to score points 98% of the time.
I know I’m going off on a tangent, but why do we combine men and women scores ? NOBODY does that, colleges, HS, youth.
I favor qualifying standards but feel that at the same time, we need to look at getting more local & regional competitors. The more people that compete, the higher the standards tend to be.
One caution is that you do want to be careful how tough they are. Let’s say we use the All American Standards and typically, in a given year 5 – 15 people will meet them in many age groups and events and that would be a good size field for most events except that we are all paying our own way and have other obligations [family, jobs, injuries and vacation & budget constraints]. I would guess that in any given year, less than 1/2 of the All Americans in an event can actually make the Nationals. If the fields become too small and the total entry drops significantly, it may become difficult to attract cities that will put on the meet. It appears that the main attraction for a city is the 1,000 plus entrants & perhaps their families who come in and boost the tourist industry. A smaller meet might be very competitive but will it attract sponsers as well?
My suggestion is to work at increasing the overall participation in terms of people and number of meets & quality of preformances so that a true “Nationals” will be a necessity.
I have read your comments and personally have come to the conclusion that introducing qualifying standards will do very little to promote our sport. Have you quys seen the USATF commercial with masters athletes? Its not exciting at all. All the sport need is proper promotion and prize money to get more former elite Olympians to participate so that the public can measure the existiing talent in Masters Track & Field.
on one hand, i feel that qualifying standards somewhat defeat the goal of trying to get more people involved, by inherently limiting entrants, by filtering out those who “don’t belong “. as a jumper and hurdler my events limit themselves. there’s not fifty jumpers, or fifty hurdlers trying to hash out who’s number one. i think a good start would be to have “qualifying standards ” for a “championship event” ( a seeded heat or two or three )and no standards for an “all comer event” by this i mean : at landover there would have been a full slate of events, but the unseeded sections could have been run on friday, with the “championship races ” on saturday, in the limelight. the winners of the unseeded sections could be given awards stating so , and the winners in the “championship event ” given the proper medals.sort of like a junior varsity and a varsity. this of course would be implemented only when needed. if there are thirty M50 sprinters the seeded guys run in the limelight. as far as publicity, i’ve not seen any in a long time. i thought for sure on sunday(folowing the saturday events ) there would be at least one article in the washington papers. my local paper, the asbury park press nj,had nothing. although they used to be great in giving all levels of track and field top press. when manalapan h.s. nj robbie andrews (son of my teamate bob andrews) broke the national 800m record and went under 1:50 indoors,as well as alan webbs 1000m record, there was a tiny little snippet in the side margin on the second page of the sports section. on the front page of the newspaper was an article and photo of the wrestler who won the state title, and just about the whole sports section was devoted to every stat of every wrestler that was in the state tournament.i’ve written numerous times to the press to try to get some help to re-establish track and field articles to some of the prominence the writers used to give it. so far it hasn’t worked. the same goes for meet attendance. back in 1987 the shore ac sponsored a meet in memory of the late great american javelin thrower bob roggy. there were seven thousand fans there, along with wide world of sports and many news stations. the top javelin throwers in the world came, as did many olympians. i was fortunate to be invited to compete in the long jump. it was a night i’ll never forget.eamon coghlin said “it was just like a european summer meet ” the meet is still functioning as the nj international track and field meet, but the numbers have been low lately. we need to continue our dialogue with each other and bounce things around and surely with all of our “combined wisdom ” we will be able to help the sport we love ,thrive better than it is at the moment. as far as more press ?…. scandals never fail…who said “there’s no such thing as “bad publicity ?”…albert
Standards…Schmadards
You can not even get USATF local associations to hold indoor meets. In Lake Erie Assoc. and the Three Rivers Assoc., they do not hold indoor meets. People there are forced to run against high school or college athletes and may or may not get an accurate time for record keeping purposes! Until USATF can fix the problem at the local level, the National level will not get any better. Has anyone heard there is a recession going on? Think that might be the reason for lower numbers both indoors and outdoors at the National meet? What a hassle to go to Idaho in the winter for a 50 year old still working in the midwest. Fly thru Chicago or Minneapolis to get to Idaho, rent a car drive several hours, all in the span of four days, yea right! Now Landover was much better and an easy drive! Lets see to get to Wisconsin from Ohio, drive 9 hours or fly to Chicago, take a bus or train, rent a car, etc.
One meet before the outdoor meet in Wisconsin in the midwest(in March!!): http://www.masterstrack.com/meets/midw.html
One in the east: http://www.masterstrack.com/meets/east.html
Zero in Middle America: http://www.masterstrack.com/meets/mida.html
Not too many opportunities to compete!
I do like Al Cestero’s suggestion of non-seeded events at Nationals. Personally, I don’t have the gifts or time to acquire the ability to compete with the top dogs and do not enjoy getting lapped and finishing last every time. But I do love the sport and try to contribute in other ways. And, quite honestly, I would not travel to a meet if I could not at least participate in something, just to maintain health.
If one lives in Raleigh, NC, qualifying for indoors would not be practical, the nearest indoor facility with a masters meet is 300 miles away in Landover. In North Carolina, we do not have a facility available to hold an Association indoor masters championship (and none are planned that I’m aware of).
Outdoors, we have 2 or 3 meets that might qualify for standards, but those meets have their own challenges just surviving from year to year. Participation has been declining over the last 6 years.
Lack of practice facilities could be a cause of declining numbers. In Raleigh, the nearest non-asphalt outdoor track facility not locked up is about a 30 mile drive, just to practice our sport. And, climbing 12 foot fences to do an interval workout, one still bears the risk and possible rath of local security forces, often before the workout is complete.
Most people, even if interested in participating or getting back into the sport will not do that for long, if at all. And many current athletes will be discouraged by this difficulty.
There are just too many other things one can do, and near as I can tell, the baby boomer generation is not choosing track & field. The barriers to practice our events are quite high in many places in this country.
Our sport has a lot of competition and this needs to be addressed to increase participation.
Didn’t think I would comment on this one again, but what the heck, might as well.
David Pain got us off to a great start in the late 1960s, and that initial model (a nationals open to all, no qualifying standards, and no ties to any regional meets) seemed to work pretty well.
In 1989 (San Diego) we finally made it to 1450 competitors, a number that was hurt by one force and helped by another. One, the worlds were in Eugene that year, and no doubt hundreds of competitors went there for the worlds and skipped the San Diego nationals (too expensive, too much time away to do both). On the other hand, a considerable number of foreigners stopped off at San Diego before going on to Eugene. So, let’s call the two forces a wash.
Since reaching 1450 in 1989 (a time when the U.S. had a much smaller population than it does today) we have had EXACTLY 2 nationals with 1400 or more competitors. They would be Eugene (1994) and Eugene (2000). Certainly, 1400 is a rather modest number for a national championship, but I will set it out as a goal. In brief, of our last 19 outdoors (1990 through 2008), 2 have reached this modest goal, and 17 have not.
We have now had 8 outdoors in a row with less than 1400 competitors, ending with the extraordinarily poor showing at Spokane in 2008, where we could not even draw 1000. Thus, I am all for following the general thrust set forth by Professor Robbins (above), which might be summarized as follows: Change direction when you’re not getting the results you want. I believe that the All-Am standards are too difficult to be qualifying marks, but somehow we have to make some changes, and I mean some big ones.
Although I love the thought of going to Oshkosh, and although I already know we have terrific people there to help us, every indication we have so far is that this meet will be the 9th in a row to fall short of the modest goal of 1400. I would be thrilled with 1375, but our model does not seem adequate to go even that high. We need help.
I support having qualifying standards for nationals. As previously stated it adds prestige for someone to say they ran in a national championship if they can also say they “qualified for Nationals.” So, how do you strike a balance of attracting more people without turning many away? While I am not sure that Masters Track has an “elitist” tag, there clearly is nowhere to hide, unlike a road race, which is the “big hurdle” to get over from a participation standpoint. Here is my solution to how to do it, if I was “king for a day.”
For all events except the 10000, 10K walk, and the steeplechase there would be three ways one could qualifiy for nationals and they are as follows: Option 1: Time. The qualifying standard used would be the “All-American” standard, but, it would be three age groups above your current age group. (For example a M45 800m runner would have to meet the qualifying time of 2:35, which just happens to be the All-American standard for M60-64.) What if you’re old enough that you don’t have three age groups older than you? You’re in the meet. Option 2: You medaled in the same event at last year’s nationals. This would apply even if you moved up an age group. Option 3: Finish in the first 3 at the regional championship regardless of your time and you are in.
The above solution gives preference to those outstanding athletes who have already proven themselves at Nationals. Having qualifying meets through the regional championships will encourage participation at those meets and will provide incentive to participate if you have not meet a qualifying time. Having the time standard will also allow someone to qualify if the regional meet is nowhere near where they live and making “multiple road trips” in one season is not really an option. At the same time the above plan allows for the “prestige” of qualifying for nationals.
So what about the 10000m, 10K race-walk and the steeple you ask? Those events do not get contested a lot so the opportunities to qualify would be equally limited. So in my “king for a day” qualifying for nationals world, if you signed up for any of those three events at nationals, your in.
The overarching idea is to increase both participation and at the same time add to the quality and prestige of our national championships. I believe this system would accomplish that.
Thoughts?
This is my second comment. As for increasing participation; it’s all about economics. I did not go to Spokane last year strictly due to economics. It would have cost me $1400 for two tickets round trip alone. I talked to others that said they could not make Spokane also because of money issues. When the economy gets better, participation will automatically increase.
The European countries are closer to one another in proximity–the USA being so spread out is a big reason why we don’t get the numbers at our Championships that the Europeans get.
mark cleary is right on the money . although i’ve never been to europe, i’ve heard about the great rail system. that coupled with the physical size of europe lends itself to easier travel.(let’s not forget that they’re also a lot older than the u.s. ) i’ve only been to three indoor nationals. princeton in ’84 , boston in 2004 , and landover ’09. outdoors i’ve made two. nyc ’86 and maine ’07. (was entered in charlotte, but couldn’t make it ) these were all within driving distance for me . in fact my teamate and i did a day trip to springfield mass for an eastern regional meet (on the road at 4am and home by10pm) as i said earlier, the bob roggy meet at holmdel hs in 1987 had over 7,000 spectators. elliott denman(usa olympic team ’56 )(shore a c ) and the rest of the meet organizers did a spectacular job. the former olympians and world class “elites ” all said “that’s what the meets are like in the summer in europe”. for a brief moment, i thought the history of track and field in new jersey had made a huge turn for the better. i was wrong. but i’ll do my best to talk up and promote in whatever ways i am able to, our great sport and continue to look to the future….albert
First, I’d like to thank Peter Taylor for giving the interview to my blog. It was a terrific post.
I’d also like to say that I think his ideas deserve consideration. People often crave what’s hard to get. Participation in a nationals might be one of those things.
As for Europe versus the U.S., the former is around 3.9 million square miles and the U.S. is about 3.8 million, so I’m not sure geography has much to do with it on a large scale.
But if I may agree with Mark – while perhaps reading something into his phrasing that was a little unclear – I think the individual national titles in Europe do indeed benefit from the size of each country. Championship meets are easier to get to and yet still carry the aura of “national championships.”
And European Championships are no harder to get to than USA National championships, but they have the extra allure of pitting champions from different countries against one another. A little patriotism and pride never hurt attendance at a sporting match.
And this is where Peter’s ideas seem most promising. If our nationals did indeed carry some sense of state versus state competition, or region versus region, it might enhance the allure of the meet.
Or it might not.
I don’t really know. But it never hurts to think about new ideas … or even old ones.
Obviously, there’s pros and cons on this issue. However, I observed something at The Outdoor Nationals last year that no serious compeditor should have to endure.
In the 65-69 200 meter finals ( there were not enough entrants to have prelims), Steve Robbins was eyeing a potential record braking run. Unfortunately, there was a guy in this heat who had no clue regarding a starting position–He was just standing there, leaning forward–He false-started not once, but twice.
I have to believe this hurt Steve’s chances of setting yet another record. Somehow, our best runners need some type of protection from another incident like this. Perhaps there should be “some” standards.
Regarding the comparison of Masters Track Events in Europe vs. those in the USA, the most significant difference is Track and Field is much higher in popularity among Europeans and a much bigger part of European culture than it is in the USA or North America.
Track is probably the second or third most popular sport in Europe. Watch an hour TV sports news show in Europe and you’ll note that, except for soccer, track gets as much or more coverage as any other sport. Where do the elite USA track athletes go to make their money running in meets -Europe. Talk to any casual jogger in Paris or London and you’ll find they have a genuine interest and knowledge of track and field. I’d say elite American T&F athletes are better know in Europe than in their own country.
In the USA and Canada, track and field is, at best, a fringe sports. (betcha 1000 times more Americans would watch poker on tv than track and field.) Few participants, hardly any media coverage, very few bid meets. So -the number of masters participants is going to be smaller than in Europe. At any World Masters T&F Championship, a large number of European athletes will have their expenses paid by their Club. How many (any?) American athlete does that happen to?
That is the difference between the USA and Europe -at least as far as track and field is concerned.
Well, I will come back for another helping, why not? Reading Ron Bruner’s comment about the neophyte who false started twice at Spokane made me think of reason no. 5 for having standards: the possible harms of putting people in lanes who don’t know track and field at all (or of handing someone a javelin or hammer who doesn’t know how to throw it).
Also just took a look at usatf.org for the history of our outdoor nationals. In 2002 (Orono) we had just 7 finishers in the M55 10,000 run, and yet that is a heavily populated age group running a popular distance. Winning time was 35:20.10 (5:41.2 per mile), and 7th place was 1:19:57.32 (12:52.1/mile).
As I recall, the 7th-place runner finished his race at some point during a later event (he just kept on “running” until he got his 25 laps completed). Makes me think of reason no. 6 for having standards: it is a little odd, and rather confusing, to have runners finish their event while a later event is being held.
Also looked at the entries for Oshkosh (July 9-12, 2009). Pulled out my magic calculator and found we are on pace for 1067 entries. Because we reached 1450 entries in 1989, I would hope we could do better than that in 2009 (20 years later). Will keep revising the projection as new entries come in.
I am for standards. Call me an elitist, but I dont believe that Nationals or the World Championship are the correct venue to try a new event for the first time in their life. Especially not in the hammer throw, discuss and pole vault. Call me an elitist, but I do not like to see people CLIMBING over the hurdles in the steeplechase. I am for standards. Not for strict standards, but standards that would eliminate 10-20% of competitors. We can certainly live without embarrassing performances that certainly reduce the prestige of National Championship. Very few very bad competitors lower the standard of the competition as the events take much longer time and they frequently do not know the rules and actually interfere with the competition. There are many venues to compete without any restrictions. Lets have ONE competition where we bias the rules towards high performance. Call me an elitist, but I prefer an well organized, safe competition over an middle aged Woodstock.
I think Al Cestero has it right as far as the sprints and hurdles – runners with seeded entry times below a certain standard could race on the first day of the nationals. Perhaps two or three could be advanced in each age bracket to the next round if they break the standard. The faster runners with better seed times would have a bye for the first day and race each other in heats and finals in the regular schedule. This setup would not turn away anyone and would allow the neophytes to participate and get a close up look the following days at the more qualified sprinters. But for the 400 meters and up I prefer the seeded sections open to all method now employed at the USATF Masters Indoor National Track and Field Championships. Each athlete gets to race once based on an entry seed time from a recent performance in a legitimate meet that publishes its results. This system conserves resources and allows athletes to compete at a higher level in more events increasing the excitement of the nationals. The fast generally race against the fast and the slower runners generally compete against the slower runners. Yes, there are those on the cusp who end up in the slower seeded heat and run fast enough to place in the top three overall. Well, for the next time they now have a seed time that will most likely place them in the fast heat.
Keeping the meet open to all comers in the orignal spirt of David Pain is key to the future success of the masters track. We need every beating heart and flush wallet at the starting line who has an inclination to race. If there are too many hoops to jump through for the newcomers; they just won’t come. There will always be false starts . . .inexperienced or experienced, makes no difference. Its draconian, but if it is a serious problem the Olympic method can be employed. The field gets one false start and that is all.
I also enjoyed Magill’s interview of Taylor. I want to hear more of Peter Taylor’s tales of himself as a young runner training himself after having absorbed the literature of the day and his early racing escapades.
Peter…could you post your personal email address? I wanted to write to you but it’s not something needed to put on the blog. Thanks
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