Puerto Rico WMA meet suffers entry shortfall
The biennial world masters championships traditionally draws 5,000 to 6,000 athletes, making it one of the world’s biggest track meets. But this year’s event in Carolina, Puerto Rico, may see a dramatic falloff in those figures. According to local organizing committee spokesman Manuel de Jesús: “We are processing more and more entries as they come. . . . Today we have over 2,300 (entrants) and more are coming. Hopefully visa problems can be resolved for all athletes that are non US citizens.” Earlier this week, Annette’s Seite reported that only 1,900 athletes had registered for the world WMA meet.
But de Jesúses reports: “1,900 was at the time I last revised the information. From that point we have increased that amount substantially. I’ll have a better idea by June 15.”
Annette Koop’s Web site worried about the turnouts, however, and reported that only 101 Puerto Rican athletes have entered the meet (in contrast to the 10,000-plus that entered the 1993 meet in Japan). Germany is sending 271 masters, the site also reported. But traditional masters power Britain is sending only 180 athletes. Spain is down for 34, Italy 33, Poland 2 and Hungary a single entrant.
Visa problems associated with post-911 restrictions may be involved in depressing the turnout, as well as economic conditions, competing events in Eugene, Sacramento and the National Senior Olympics this weekend in Virginia — plus fears of torrid weather.
Twenty years ago — September 2003 — San Juan, Puerto Rico, hosted the fifth World Veterans Athletic Championships, and high temperatures and humidity led to serious problems for many athletes. The current Carolina organizers are acutely aware of that legacy and make a point on their Web site that many events will be held away from the hottest point of the day, and medical crews are on standby.
WMA pushed back the entry deadline to May 31, but it’s not clear yet whether this will rescue the meet from the lowest turnout in decades.
One Response
I’ve been tilting at this windmill for so long that its not worth repeating all the argument other than to say, I told you so. Administrators fail to recognize that early registration deadlines are a NEGATIVE for a meet. They start the initial contact between competitors and meet organizers off with hostility, a firmness that indicates a lack of cooperation and consideration for the entrant, and a penalty for not following the straight and narrow line they define. This meet started off with an announced deadline back in March. Yes, they have improved it since then, but have they possibly communicated that to everyone–no.
In the sales game, there is a concept of perception of value. Back in March, some 10,000 potential participants individually weighed the negatives (cost, weather, time–there are lots of potential factors, back in March their was the doubt of potential war involving the host in the air) vs the value of the comraderie, competition and potential of winning a title. Obviously the majority decided against going to Puerto Rico. Now that the meet organizers have seen the error of their ways (by not getting sufficient entries) and have moved the deadline date they have a bigger hurdle to overcome: They don’t just have to communicate the change in date but they have to overcome the decision each of those individuals have already made–the one that the meet just isn’t worth the hassle. The early deadline forced people to make the decision before they saw how their training was unfolding, before the safety issue (war) was settled, before many even knew whether they could take the time off. The fact that the deadline date has changed at least three times is proof of the artificiality of the deadline date in the first place.
Meet directors: Try to learn from the mistakes of others. I can’t seem to say it enough, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Worse yet, you are limiting the competitive opportunities of the athletes.
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