Webcast blunder at Boston 3000
The motto of Trackmeets.com is “We show every lap of every race.” This webcasting company out of Syracuse University lives up to its goal most of the time. But at the USATF nationals last weekend in Boston, the crew dropped the ball. Big time. When Tony Young and masters discovery Brian Pope hammered each other the last few laps of the masters 3000 at the Boston USATF nationals , the crowd at the Reggie Lewis Center could be heard in the background screaming. It was a thrilling race that resulted in an American M40 indoor record for Young. But those last three or four laps apparently weren’t shown on the webcast.
Instead, the crew cut away for an interview of Stacy Dragila after she reclaimed her world indoor vault record. (I say “apparently weren’t shown” because my slow dial-up connection conveyed audio but not video, and I was told by a reliable source that the last laps weren’t shown.)
What a shame — and a huge blunder.
The Dragila interview — pretty much standard gushing — could have waited a couple minutes, or been taped for insertion in the webcast later.
The last laps of the masters 3000 showed Pope take the lead and appear to pull away, but Young reeled him in in spectacular fashion. Would have been a site to see.
So tsk tsk, trackmeets.com (aka i2sports.com) for abominable directing at a crucial point of an American record race.
Although the original webcast of Sunday’s portion of the USATF nationals cost $10, it’s now archived and can be viewed for free. Just click on the USA indoor nationals link.
To go straight to the masters events, move the “slider” of your video viewer to 2:51:00 into the webcast to hear/see the masters women’s 200 (including its false start). The men’s masters 3000 starts about 2:58:18 into the webcast.
David Hinga, the 26-year-old rabbit for the masters 3K, went out way too fast, BTW. But he eventually settled down and took the runners through a 4:26 mile, only a second behind his promised pace.
Meanwhile, Mark Cleary of SoCal TC should be congratulated for bringing off two wonderful masters exhibitions at Boston last weekend — the site of the upcoming USATF masters indoor nationals at the end of this month. He did his job. Too bad the webcast crew couldn’t do theirs.
