When the calendar flips to May, that marks the beginning of the international track & field "regular season." Yes, they have indoor track, and this year they had the World Indoor Championships, but everybody thinks of track as an outdoor sport. It is, after all, the marquee sport of the Summer Olympics.
For Americans, this is the off year in the four-year cycle. No Olympics. No World Championships. Europeans always have something (they have Euros in the even years, even when there is an Olympics), but this is the year for American athletes to focus on things other than peaking at Nationals just so they can make the team before peaking again at the Worlds/Olympics. For most, that means making some money in the Diamond League meets.
But this year, there's a new wrinkle. An event has been added to the international calendar. Next week in the Bahamas will be the debut of the IAAF World Relays. I'm excited for the World Relays. It's an interesting concept that I hope will catch on. The best part is that it's more than just the traditional 4x100 and 4x400 that you see in the Olympics. Distance runners will finally get their chance to get in on the relay fun.
There are five events at the World Relays. The 4x100 and 4x400, of course, will be run, along with the 4x200, 4x800 and 4x1500. That's fine for now. Those are the five distances you'll generally see relays in. It would be silly to include a shuttle hurdles or something like that, and there obviously aren't relays in field events. I would like to see the sprint medley and distance medley included too, though. The distance medley is an indoor staple, and they have the sprint medley in the Youth Olympics and other lower-level international meets, so the athletes are familiar enough with it.
It's not that foreign a concept to include them in a relay carnival, either. They have every type of relay you can think of at the Penn Relays (hence the name), including both the SMR and DMR, which are included as part of the USA vs. the World portion. Speaking of the Penn Relays, until the World Relays came into existence, that was really the only opportunity to see professional stars run relays other than the traditional 4x100 and 4x400. Swimmers get to compete in all these different relays. It's nice to see runners finally have the ability to do the same thing.
The three sprint relays and the two distance relays are all well and good, but the SMR and DMR are fun because they mix different races. The SMR consists of one 400-meter leg, two 200-meter legs and an 800-meter anchor leg. The 800's technically not a sprint (I'd love to see the SMR that's 200-100-100-400), but in order to have a good SMR you have to have a least a decent 800 runner. You can't just throw four sprinters out there. Same with the DMR, which throws a 400 in with the 800, 1200 and 1600. You have to have a sprinter (or at least someone who can a reasonable time in the 400) in order to do well in the DMR.
We've gotten used to seeing those two races in the NCAA, and they're fun to watch. Think about how fun they'd be at the international level. We're talking the best of the best in the world. And running the SMR and DMR at the World Relays would prove which nation is truly the best all-around. That makes me wish there was some sort of way for them to work in field events.
Jamaica and the US will obviously be favored in the sprints, while Kenya is perhaps the top distance-running nation. But where the other nations will fall will be interesting to see. And the best part is they'll use the World Relays as a qualifier in the 4x100 and 4x400. That's better than basing it strictly on times. National teams don't really get many opportunities to run the 4x100 and 4x400 in a competitive setting like this, so those qualifying times often have to be taken with a grain of salt.
No matter how many teams go to the Olympics or World Championships, you know the US and Jamaica and Great Britain are going to qualify. But those teams that might be ranked 12th-16th, the ones that have no chance to medal and would otherwise be borderline qualifiers, now have something to compete for. That's going to be just as worthwhile to watch as the battle for the medals.
I hope the World Relays catch on. The IAAF is committed to it, and I hope the athletes are just as on board. Because this meet sounds like a lot of fun. What's even better, though, is that it's making track & field a team sport. That's something you don't see with this sport on the professional level.
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