Devil Dog wrote:
If I were in charge the full track program would be 100, 400, 1500, 5000, and marathon. Long jump and high jump. Javelin and shot put.
I would add the 200m hurdles and pole vault as individual events and eliminate the marathon from the Outdoor Track & Field program.
There would then be 10 individual events, and the decathlon would be changed to the "All-Around," and would consist of all 10 stand-alone events. Add the SMR and DMR as relays, contest all events separately as men's and women's, and that's the program for the Outdoor Track & Field World Championship.
Individual indoor events at World Indoors should be the 60m, 300m, 1000m, 3000m, 60m hurdles, 1500m steeple (no water jump, one barrier per straightaway), weight throw, triple jump, and pole vault (if there's some variation on the pole vault I would do that instead of the pole vault, too, in keeping with the "off events" theme). Don't contest an all-around indoors, but do a mixed 4 x 200m and 4 x 800m for the relays.
Separate from the Indoor and Outdoor Track & Field programs, marathon, half marathon, XC, half marathon race walk, and hammer throw (all of the "out-of-stadium" events) world championships should be held individually. Each of those should have an international circuit, independent of Track & Field, on which athletes must compete in order to qualify for their discipline's World Chmpionship. These circuits and championships would still be under the IAAF's auspices.
Leave ultra running and obstacle racing alone, and let them have their own governing body/championships. You can't be everything to everyone (and in that vein, I would even be fine letting the hammer and race walk go the way of the dodo, or at least cut them loose to fend for themselves, leaving only the "out-of-stadium" running events as the ones with their own, stand-alone championships--although that just might be the distance runner in me talking.)