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Our sport is not dead....
71 posts
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Our sport is not dead....
I want to share my attitude about our sport re: drugs et al....I am going to enjoy Beijing assuming the athletes are clean...call me naive, call me unrealistic but it works for me. Innocent until proven guilty...and I'm going to relish the competition and be thrilled by every outstanding mark.
I am with you runforfun.
There is a lot of crap associated with the Olympics and sports in general and I actually have no desire to be in Beijing. But darn it all let me live in my little Olympic bubble for two weeks. I don't drink (much) or do drugs, so getting high on Olympic sport is a my halluncinatory fun! 
The media are out of control. They've lost it. If Bryan Clay scores 9200 at the OG and at the same time it is revealed that the 47th place finisher at the US Olympic marathon trials has been found to have taken an illegal cold medicine, guess which story is going to get the bigger coverage.
Note to the mainstream media--reporting the same story 2000 times does NOT mean that there have been 2000 stories on that topic!! P.S. Just to make this clear, the 47th place finisher at the Olympic marathon trials was NOT found to have taken an illegal cold medicine.
this is why, these kind of boards need to stay alive. Because this is the heart of Track and Field. And we need to continue to find away to get the sport out there. And get the media to focus on the great!
Track certainly seems to be the sport that the media wants to pick on. While I think it's admirable people here don't think the sport is dead, it's pretty obvious to me as a more casual fan that the sport is on life support (at least here in the States). I think if the higher-ups continue to police the sport tightly, that's a positive start. Personally I think there are some major names from the past who got to retire clear as a bell and some of the policing should involve taking down some of the past royalty.
I'll enjoy Beijing but many sports besides track will be a part of my viewing pleasure.
I don't think the sport is any less popular in the US now than ever. When was it really that popular?
What happened in Eugene tells me it's alive at least on some level.
I don't have time right now to cite chapter and verse, but let me assure you that the sport was once more popular than it is now.
I'm only 34. 
I should have said "In my lifetime"! 
The drugs scandals have really affected my enjoyment of elite-level athletics - I still love the local 'grass roots' stuff.
It makes me feel a little sad that I can't watch some performances without thinking "yeah right", which is more due to my becoming very cynical than anything else. Still, I'm glad, like the OP, I can sit and watch Beijing and put it to the back of my head and forget about it and just take what I see at face value. Thank goodness for denial - not just a river in Egypt.
I do not know what others are thinking but I find the recent success in nabbing those taking the PEDs route (T&F, cycling) to be positive in that these results seem to indicate a new level of detection and hence potentially a new level of deterance.
In cycling, the economics have turned around enough that rather than having a code of silence, teams cannot afford to have someone test positive and hence there is more peer pressure to not use than there has even been in the sport. The apparent dimise of the Pro Tour might have reduced the effective ban from 4 years to 2 years (Pro Tour teams can not hire an athlete banned for two year for another two years), although the Tour might not let anyone with a 2-year ban race for an extended period.
as a member of the media, i have to ask you guys ... are you saying we should stop covering drug suspensions and positives tests? hey, i'm tired of this stuff too, but you can't ignore it we wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't report what was happening
it all comes down to the popularity of the sport and the income it generates. Baseball has been riddled with steroid use and it doesn't get plummeted by the media as does track ab field simply because it generates a lot of income for everyone.
I don't care what they have to say, I will enjoy my sport as long as there is a strong effort to rid the sport of it's daunting image. Most of the writers have nothing else to write about because they don't know the sport and not enthuse by it. One Love!
There's reporting and then there's over-reporting. We've seen newspapers report on a positive sample given by a relatively minor athlete at a big meet that the paper never covered. If who wins a race isn't important, why should who gets disqualified be important? We've also seen writers who are assigned to cover a meet and instead write about current doping issues, somehow tying them to the meet, rather than writing about the competition. The meet just becomes a convenient hook for a doping story. It's no wonder that some readers get the impression that there's nothing going on in the sport other than doping.
Balancing out this sentiment about over-coverage, however, who won the battle the week-end Graham was in court and Bolt was in New York? I believe Bolt:s WR got more coverage than did Graham:s Fifth Ammendment rights.
Only one instance, and it took a WR to curve back the right way, but it was a correct call by the larger media outlets. Unfortunately, even then, some threw question marks and flags at the Bolt performance, causing further speculation by those who follow the sport at an arm:s length once every fourth year or so.
I think this is a very good point. The media HAVE to report about drugs stories because they are big news- whether you like it or not, a positive test lights these boards up- everyone loves a scandal, it's human nature. However, I think a lot of the problem (certainly in the UK and I presume the US) is that the journalists writing about athletics in the mainstream press are not athletics specialists and, quite frankly, know sod all about the sport half the time. You only have to witness stuff like The Sun's infamous "Don't let this drugs cheat be the face of 2012" story about The Big O last year- absolutely riddled with errors but it made for good copy for Joe Public. I'm all for reporting of drugs busts, yes, but some balance in proceedings would be nice- focus on the positives (excuse the pun) and not just the "positives"...!!!
peach, one problem I am continuing to see with several UK-based papers is that if one mentions a drug cheat, every person who has had a tie to the subject gets lumped into the article as well. Take for instance any number of articles written about Dwain Chambers, and one inevitably reads about Christine Ohuruogu without ever having considered that she should fit anywhere in the article.
This continues to occur in the USA as well. Mention Allyson Felix over the past month, and one often has more often than not had to read about a prisoner in a cell who has nothing to do with Allyson Felix or her sprinting.
One (probably not the only) reason for over-reporting of PED related
stories: Every competition will have a winner (with very rare exceptions); thus, that someone won a competition is not news to the average reader/viewer. A minority of competitions will have a revealed drug cheat; thus, a drug revelation _is_ news to the average reader/viewer. From a commercial and public interest POV, papers are probably justified in their focus on drugs (although it could be argued that they have a long-term responsibility not to harm the sport by over-reporting). Let's face it: To the majority of all readers, the name of the winner of most competitions will mean nothing, and whether A or B won is of little interest. These people cannot spell Robels und Lui Xaing. We true fans are a small minority, and we do not buy enough papers.
Precisely. It's just lazy journalism and why I think the papers in this country really should concentrate on getting proper athletics correspondents, hell, use freelancers rather than the football specialists they chuck in now. And don't get me started on the time I read an article where Paula was referred to as "Paula Ratcliffe" on at least three occasions! 
For instance, in 1962 over 150,000 people showed up at Stanford over two days to watch the USA-USSR meet. As for reporting the news, my local paper might or might not have a small blurb for your average world or US record, but never fails to mention a failed drug test.
Of course all drug-related news should be covered in depth, but they are emphasized because realtively few members of the media have a deep understanding of the T & F sports they are covering. We are lucky to have some who truly do, but we are not going to see a slow motion breakdown of Tyson Gay's drive phase on Sportscenter.
Pundits, Michael Wilbon among them, have said they will not pay attention to t&f because of PEDs, but never said anything comparable about the Super Bowl or World Series. That's the hypocrisy. They can't afford to. They can dismiss what is in their eyes a minor sport but fail to be as critical of the sports that are the lifeblood of their networks. In reporting the 2000 US men's 4x400 team losing their medals, have any of them suggested the same happen to teams that win World Series or Super Bowls with doping athletes. Didn't think so.
I'm gonna hafta back up scott here. Back in 1962, there was much less to report on in the sports world. Baseball was easily #1, following way back by the NFL and MLB, with local college sports always big. Now T&F has to compete with a huge constellation of sports (at many levels) for a piece of the dwindling print media space. HS T&F and college T&F are still strong. USA and int'l elite are actually doing better money-wise. There's nothing wrong with our sport that a little good marketing can't fix, because we will NEVER be on a level with the first-tier sports (big pro leagues) or even the second-tier (golf and tennis). WE are a third-tier sport, like gymnastics and swimming (we're actually the big fish in that little pond), and always will be. T&F isn't going anywhere, even with the shadow of PEDs constantly over us, because we have a constantly renewing wellspring of talent bubbling up from HS. As a fan of 45 years now, I can tell you that I am MUCH better off as a fan now. The internet has made T&F totally accessible and the word IS getting out. I know that T&FN is hurting, but that's because of the overall death of print media, not because the sport is dying. I wish there was a way for them to profit with an on-line presence and perhaps that will become evident as the Web 2.0 gears up for interactivity.
Maybe track is more popular now among African-Americans and less so among Caucasian-Americans? At least in terms of numbers of participants - how many blacks were getting scholarships in the 50s and 60s? Is the US winning less medals at the Olympic level than before? In some events more, others less? I don't know. Obviously I'm talking more locally than globally.
Oh please. If one more person says "marketing" with a sense of awe that tehre are people out there who, like Albus Dumbledore can just wave their magic wand and all is copacetic I think I'll scream. No end of people with major marketing chops have given the sport their best shot, at every level from international down to local. To suggest otherwise shows a lack of comprehension of the real world.
a. no screaming b. Alakazam! c. Don't you get the impression that is one of the reasons Logan got hired?
And it's starting to work (remember - I'm on the side that says it ain't that broke). That said - NO ONE has done anything to keep the millions (literally) of HS participants interested in the sport. I see that every day. It's up to individual coaches and only a small minority are activists for the sport.
Present!
Lots of people have done lots of things (and spent lots of many) providing opportunities that might facilitate continued interest by young people in the sport. We can't have mandatory track camps, y'know. During six years in Germany in the 60s and 70s, I used to marvel at the local boys I'd see in every little town. From a very young age, they'd always be kicking a "football" around: dribbling it, passing it to their pals, bouncing it off their foot, their knee, their head. Soccer is a relatively simple game, and these boys grow up playing it and loving it. It's in their blood. To them, Franz Beckenbauer was the most famous and important man on the planet. Track isn't like soccer. It's harder to learn, and the learning rarely starts at age 5 or 6. Even being a fan is hard because the sport is complicated -- you have to know a lot of stuff to appreciate what's happening. You almost literally have to be a fanatic or else you're unlikely to be a fan at all, except once every four years. I don't have answers, but I don't share either Marlow's optimism of gh's apparent despair.
No despair here at all. I'm quite happy with knowing that track is a niche sport beloved by only the few. Trying to pretend it is anything but is an exercise in self-deception.
Doesn't make it any the less wondrous or special for me.
OUt of control
It still amazes me that our sport is under the microscope for COLD MEDS when other sports and countries knowingly use alternative methods (drugs or close to it) to train. Why is it that our countries the driving force behind these investigations (when it is so prevalent around the world). More to the point why does the media make our sport of track and field look like bandits when tons of people tune in every weekend to watch athletes (from football, baseball, basketball, NASCAR, golf (well maybe not golf)) compete and celebrate with legal and illegal drugs and it's ok. Does it make sense that after a F1 race they spray and drink champagne (not promoting drinking and driving or nothing...)? Well I’m sorry our sport is the most scrutinized and has the harshest of penalties. A ban of 8 years = you'll probably never compete again. Other sports it's a fine and or 1 year suspension? Hmmm sounds like poop to me (yes I said it... Poop)!!! Enjoy the Olympics we wait 4 years to see the best at their best good, bad or indifferent.
Skybox 
T&F gets the business because, to a greater degree than practically any other sport, its significance and allure is derived from individual performances, individual marks. If these marks are tainted because they're PED-aided, then the sports is seen as losing its integrity, and hence its significance.
Well, swimming is also time-oriented, and since there is no need for JRM's calculator, times are even more comparable from place to place. However, I suppose that the change in technology - suits, pools, strokes, etc., make it not as relevant to compare across years (or at least across Olympiads, which is too bad as there are some classic marks that are falling due only to technology).
I thought about swimming, and I believe Marlow brought it up earlier. But who follows swimming, really? In many ways, swimming shares gh's niche with T&F (although it's much easier for the fan to understand, and we can sign our ankle-biters up for community swim teams in ways you can rarely do for track.) Yet, when a prominent swimmer recently go nailed, it caused a big stink -- just like track. If there were a number of such cases, as there have been for our sport, swimming would no doubt lose credibility the same way we have.
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