Thursday, August 27, 2015

Let Her Do the Double In Rio

Allyson Felix just won her first World Championship in the 400 meters.  Already the best women's 200-meter runner on the planet, she decided not to run that event in Beijing because she'd never won the 400 at Worlds (she was second on the lean to Amantle Montsho, who's currently serving a doping ban) and, with the way the schedule was set up, she had to pick one or the other.

The 200 semifinals were also held on Thursday night, little more than an hour before the 400 final.  For all intents and purposes, it was impossible to do both.  Which is utterly ridiculous!  If the World Championships are supposed to be a showcase for the world's best athletes (especially with less than a year until the Olympics), then why are they being forced to choose an event instead of doing two, especially if winning a medal in both is possible?  Imagine if they'd made it so that Usain Bolt couldn't win three gold medals by scheduling the 200 and 4x100 on the same day!

Felix wasn't the only athlete affected by this scheduling.  The men had the same 200-400 situation.  And on the first day of the Championships, there were three finals.  Two of them were the men's marathon and men's 10,000 meters.  While it's becoming rarer, it's not unheard of for a long distance runner to enter both events...which is only possible when they're roughly a week apart!  Obviously anybody who might've been thinking about doing both couldn't.  Same thing with the 1500-5000 double on the men's side.

Am I the only one who finds this scheduling counterproductive?  Yes, more and more track & field athletes are specializing in a single event these days.  But not all of them.  The sprinters and multi-eventers aren't the only ones capable of doing two different events.  Jasmine Todd made the U.S. team in both the 100 and long jump, and Marquis Dendy made it in both the long and triple jumps.  Queen Harrison has been on the U.S. Worlds team in both the 100 and 400 hurdles, which is incredibly difficult.  And how many events did Jenna Prandini do at the NCAA Championships?  I don't even remember anymore.

One of the reasons for this problem is that the schedule doesn't allow them to focus on more than one event.  All of the invitational meets in Europe are one day, so you're obviously not going to do multiple events there.  But at the World Championships and Olympics, which both take place over a nine-day period, there's no reason not to stagger the similar events.  And not just for the stars.  In fact, maybe there'd be more stars if somebody other than Usain Bolt was able to win multiple gold medals at a championship meet.

Staggering the schedule wouldn't really be that difficult, either.  The 100 is always at the beginning of the meet and the 4x100 relay is always at the end, which means the 200 is sandwiched in the middle.  That's fine.  But it's not hard to set it up to do the 200 and 400, as well.  Three rounds of the 400 on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  A day off on Monday.  The heats of the 200 on Tuesday morning, the semis on Tuesday night, and the final on Wednesday.  Thursday off and the relay over the final weekend.

Using that logic, it's not hard to stagger the distance events in the same way.  If you want to have some variety and have the men's 800 with the women's 1500, then vice versa, that's not a problem.  In fact, you'd have to do it that way.  With the men's marathon always on that final Sunday of the Games, the men's 10,000 would have to be early, which also means the 5000 would have to be after the 10,000.  Which means the 1500 would have to be early so that it's before the 5000.  And the 800 would have to be later in the meet for the 800-1500 double.  The steeplechase can really be whenever, since steeplechasers generally don't do another event.  Same thing with the two sprint hurdles, but just in case a hurdler is ambitious enough to try it, don't have any round of the 100/110 and 400 hurdles of the same gender on the same day.

Since the women's marathon is a week before the men's, the women's schedule would almost have to be reversed.  Marathon, 800, 5000 early in the week, 1500 and 10,000 later in the week.  With the field events, it's less of an issue.  You just have to make sure the long and triple jumps aren't on the same day, and the same thing with the shot put and discus.

Sure, athletes that want to enter multiple events might have to sacrifice some recovery time to go right from one to the other, but that would be their choice.  Point is, they should at least have the option of making that decision themselves instead of having it made for them.

For a sport in need of transcendent stars (Bolt's planning on retiring after either the Rio Olympics or the 2017 World Championships), they're not helping themselves.  Swimming and track & field aren't the same sport, so it's not an apples to apples comparison, but the reason Michael Phelps was able to win eight gold medals at the Olympics seven years ago was because the schedule allowed it.  And his successful quest of 8 for 8 in '08 helped Phelps become a household name.

But the IAAF has shot itself in the foot by not allowing for a similar storyline.  Sure, Bolt's won three golds at each of the last two Olympics, but only the sprinters (and the occasional distance runner like Mo Farah that does the 5000-10,000 double) have the ability of winning multiple medals.  I'm not saying things would change that drastically if the schedule allowed it.  But it's stupid not to let other athletes try and see if they can become the next Bolt by winning multiple Olympic gold medals.

Track's biggest stars have always been sprinters, mainly because they're the ones who win multiple medals.  Before Bolt there was Carl Lewis, and you can even go all the way back to Jesse Owens.  But the other name that immediately comes to mind is Michael Johnson, who pulled off the 200-400 double in Atlanta, setting an incredible world record in the 200 that looked like it would stand for a long time until Bolt decided otherwise.

Johnson made it known that he wanted to go for the 200-400 double in Atlanta and, since the Games were in the U.S., the schedule was adjusted so that he could.  But what everyone forgets is that France's Marie-Jose Perec pulled off the same double on the women's side.

IOC President Thomas Bach said earlier in the week that the schedule can be adjusted if Allyson Felix wants to go for the double in Rio.  (Personally, I think the pre-Olympic Worlds should have the same schedule as the Olympics will, but that's a whole different can of worms.)  But they shouldn't have to adjust the schedule.  It should just be like that already.  I'm glad they're willing to do the right thing and give Allyson Felix a shot at double (or triple, or quadruple) gold in Rio, but they shouldn't need to.  The original schedule should be set up so that it's possible for everybody.  And not just the sprinters.

No comments:

Post a Comment