{"id":42253,"date":"2019-11-29T18:29:18","date_gmt":"2019-11-30T02:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/trackandfieldnews.com\/?post_type=article&p=42253"},"modified":"2019-11-29T19:52:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-30T03:52:35","slug":"from-the-editor-thoughts-on-the-diamond-league-contraction","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/trackandfieldnews.com\/article\/from-the-editor-thoughts-on-the-diamond-league-contraction\/","title":{"rendered":"FROM THE EDITOR \u2014 Thoughts On The Diamond League Contraction"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"BACK IN MARCH<\/a>, this column was titled, \u201cCall Me A Heretic, But The IAAF\u2019s Diamond League Tightening Might Actually Be The Right Move,\u201d so obviously I\u2019m a fan of the concept of producing a more compact TV product. As Seb Coe explained in announcing the cuts that have been made<\/a>, \u201cOur objective is to create a faster-paced, more exciting global league that will be the showcase for our sport. A league that broadcasters want to show and fans want to watch.\u201d Who can argue with that logic?<\/p>\n

But lest you think I\u2019ve become totally besotted by drinking of the Monaco Kool-Aid, now that all is said and done, I find that I\u2019d have tackled the fix in a slightly different way. While I\u2019m still all for the 90-minute TV show that is to be the centerpiece of the DL, I now don\u2019t think there was any need to have reduced 4 of the disciplines to what seems to many to be permanent second-class-citizen status. (Yes, this runs somewhat counter to my column of April \u201916<\/a>, in which I trumpeted, \u201cIf Ever A Sport Needed A Darwinian Pruning, It\u2019s Ours\u2014Sorry About That.\u201d)<\/p>\n

To its credit, WA did leave itself an out, saying that the roster of events could well change for \u201921, but why didn\u2019t they just set up the whole thing in the first place in a less dogmatic fashion than they have? The nuance of \u201920\u2019s not being set in stone in perpetuity was clearly lost on many of the principal players, given the strong negative reaction, particularly from TJ ace Christian Taylor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If I were king, I\u2019d simply have chosen the 4 events (200, steeple, TJ, DT) and announced that while they\u2019re not going to be part of the of the \u201920 calendar, they definitely will be in \u201921, with another 4 events sitting on the sidelines for that year.<\/p>\n

Looking down the road, no, I wouldn\u2019t envision every discipline to be part of such a rotation, because let\u2019s face it, all events are not created equal, and a certain amount of Darwinian selection needs to come into play. If the meet promoters as a whole think an event is crucial to putting butts into their seats, it needs to be staged. There\u2019s no such thing, for example, as a meet with major-league aspirations that doesn\u2019t have a 100 or a 1500\/mile. Figuring out which events deserve full full-time status will be fun, but they managed to take the first step already.<\/p>\n

(An aside: I don\u2019t understand how the discus didn\u2019t make the original cut. With the iconic discobolus statue being such an historical symbol of the sport, what says track & field more than Al Oerter\u2019s event?)<\/p>\n

Another simple step WA could\/should have taken was not to have lumped the men\u2019s and women\u2019s events together. Think of them as different disciplines. Using the \u201920 field-event schedule as an example, they could have sidelined one sex\u2019s triple jump and replaced it with the long jump and then done the same with the discus and, say, javelin. And I\u2019d throw the hammer into the mix as well. That way, each discipline would retain its status as being fully worthy of consideration. Relegating those orphans to \u201cincluded disciplines\u201d in some Diamond League meets and \u201cfeaturing\u201d them in the Continental Tour meets just isn\u2019t the same thing. Nobody wants to play in the Second Division after they\u2019ve had a taste of the Premier League.<\/p>\n

A big bonus of both rotating the events and splitting the sexes is that it gives WA the opportunity not to be locked into events which may be in a down cycle, and at the same time to be able to plug in something that projects as hot. With records being such an integral part of keeping the sport in the public eye, one certainly wouldn\u2019t want to miss staging a WR when there\u2019s a decent chance of seeing one. You know, like either the men\u2019s (Taylor vs. Claye) or women\u2019s (Rojas vs. Ibarg\u00fcen) triple jump. Oops.<\/p>\n

Major kudos to Taylor, by the way for his \u201cunionizing\u201d efforts. I just wish he\u2019d come up with a name that included track & field (or even just track) in its title. I\u2019m afraid that an organization about \u201cathletics\u201d will gain zero traction with fans and media in the U.S. and his effort can use all the help it can get. There have been countless other attempts to organize in the past, but all have faded\u2014most quite quickly\u2014after an initial rush of enthusiasm. A lot of hard work is required and it\u2019s tough enough to be training as a world-class athlete without suddenly having to deal with another major project. And the alphabet-soup gangs in Indianapolis, Monaco and Lausanne have understandably never gone out of their way to cede any of their power.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, Taylor & Co. are dealing with a far different international governing body than that of decades past, but every time I hear talk of athletes organizing, I\u2019m reminded of an IAAF press conference I was at in Monaco back in the \u201990s, when an at-the-peak-of-his-dictatorial powers Primo Nebiolo was asked about the subject and he famously thundered, \u201cThere will never be an athlete union!\u201d Here\u2019s a chance for the new WA to prove that it\u2019s really new. \u25a1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BACK IN MARCH, this column was titled, \u201cCall Me A Heretic, But The IAAF\u2019s Diamond League Tightening Might Actually Be… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":13524,"menu_order":2684,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"issuem_issue":[728],"issuem_issue_categories":[52,31],"issuem_issue_tags":[],"class_list":["post-42253","article","type-article","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","issuem_issue-november-2019","issuem_issue_categories-departments","issuem_issue_categories-from-the-editor"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFROM THE EDITOR \u2014 Thoughts On The Diamond League Contraction - Track & Field News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/trackandfieldnews.com\/article\/from-the-editor-thoughts-on-the-diamond-league-contraction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"FROM THE EDITOR \u2014 Thoughts On The Diamond League Contraction - Track & Field News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"BACK IN MARCH, this column was titled, \u201cCall Me A Heretic, But The IAAF\u2019s Diamond League Tightening Might Actually Be... 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