USA Track and Field announced its findings from Project 30 yesterday, its main fact-finding investigation into what USATF can do to change what happened in Beijing last summer, when the track and field team won seven medals in Beijing, considered a low tally even though the teams in 2000 and 2004 won only one more.
Changes may very well be needed when it comes to the management of time between the U.S. Olympic Trials and the Olympics every summer, which is usually a month or so.
Its suggestion that the Olympic Trials be shortened from 10 days to five, though, isn’t warranted at all.
Eugene hosted the 2008 Trials’ eight days of competition over 10 days, with two rest days in the middle that gave the athletes and the media – trust me, I was there the entire time – a much-needed break. But in its first host of the Trials since 1980, Eugene’s performance earned reviews that were better than the event organizers could have imagined.
Unlike Beijing, when two dropped relay batons during the competition gave the USATF officials a bad taste in their mouth during the event, there was nothing that sparked controversy about how Eugene scheduled the Trials, nor how the athletes performed.
And isn’t the Olympic Trials meant to mimic as close as possible the actual Olympics? I and everyone else was under that impression last summer, seeing as how the summer Olympics track portion took place Aug. 15-24, and the event scheduling was even the same in both meets.
One complaint of Project 30 is that a 10-day meet was draining for the athletes emotionally, physically, financially or otherwise. That doesn’t answer the question of how an eight-day schedule crammed into five would be any less stressful for an athlete. Nor does it answer why an athlete couldn’t just arrive before and leave right after their event is finished. Alan Webb didn’t qualify in the 1,500 meters last summer, but he was a heavy favorite going in, and he didn’t arrive until a few days before his first preliminary.
Some of USATF’s most marketable athletes are those who compete in several events. Hyleas Fountain won the heptathlon over the meet’s first two days, then competed in long jump preliminaries two days later after a rest day. Why can’t USATF see that athletes given more chance to rest will likely perform better?
A better idea would be to invest time and ideas into how to prepare athletes in the pre-Olympic period, such as when they arrive in the host country. Talking with Olympians and a trainer who worked with several Oregon Track Club Elite athletes at the U.S. Training Center in Dalian, said he couldn’t coach his athletes in Beijing because security didn’t want thousands of coaches at the Bird’s Nest at track level. Give him and trainers and coaches like him better access to facilities and their athletes. Several athletes also came down with food poisoning, including Eugene resident and 800-meter qualifier Nicole Teter. Working on ways to keep the athletes in a better training environment in the host country would be beneficial.
The proposal of Project 30, among several others, isn’t complete or final. The 2012 Trials that Eugene will host haven’t officially been shortened to five days. But the idea will likely get a big response from the large contingent of track and field fans in the Pacific Northwest, in articles like this and from fan letters, which it should. It’s because when you agree to have Eugene host the meet, you do so knowing it won’t be just a track meet; the organizers were right to treat it like a 10-day festival last summer.
Ultimately, if USATF decides to stay this course, it will lose television money from shortening its biggest meet in the Olympic cycle, and will likely get negative feedback from its hurried athletes. In the embattled sport of track and field, which has faced several high-profile scandals in the past eight years, taking a step forward means not turning one of its best fan bases against it for a decision like this.
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USATF format change not reasonable
Daily Emerald
February 10, 2009
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