Meet was such a mixed bag of stellar and abysmal performances
I just looked at all the results. The meet had mostly stellar performances or at least decent. Not that many abysmal. A few events were adversely affected by headwinds, e.g. the men's & women's 100m. Overall the mid distance and distance events were very solid. The sparse crowd was a downer but it's L.A. Too bad the great weather can't be magically transported to areas of the U.S. with a more passionate fan base.
As someone who just moved from the LA area i can understand low attendance. LA is becoming the land of a few "haves" and many "have nots", in part due to high cost of living in CA. I suspect many of those with the interest in T&F are more in the "have not" category (at least at this point in their life). Coupled with the idea of driving to/from the west side of LA on a Friday night makes it even less of interest, especially since the "haves" could sit home and stream. I never went to Mt Sac or Bryan Clay or anything due to traffic - just once went to JSerra to see Jakob et al but drive down 6 hours early to avoid the traffic.
And yet not close to being as horrible as Dafne Schippers.
I wonder whether SRR is a bit intimidated by Ato, who is the undisputed king of presenting sprints and hurdles. She made some insightful comments about Rai Benjamin's stretch run in the 400H.
The Friday night distance meet broadcast was terrific with the team of Paul Swangard, Shannon Rowbury, and Will Leer.
Shannon Rowbury was very good and Swangard seemed much more relaxed in that situation. The addition of Will Leer added humor at times and kept the group pretty loose.
Harvard's Maia Ramsden runs a NR and PB of 4:02.58 - the #2 time in NCAA history. The bad news is she missed the Olympic auto time by .08. The good news is her world ranking point total will improve to 1194 which will rank her #39 and they take #45. She's currently #48
Harvard's Maia Ramsden runs a NR and PB of 4:02.58 - the #2 time in NCAA history. The bad news is she missed the Olympic auto time by .08. The good news is her world ranking point total will improve to 1194 which will rank her #39 and they take #45. She's currently #48
Wiley was faster as a freshman.
I see the seemingly insecure Wiley fans have a new target
Disappointed by Reynold Cheruiyot. Likely not the next big thing.
Kenyans have their money on Brian Komen and Wanyonyi.
He led from 700 to 1480 on the back of heavy travel of late. He should be fine. The race said more about Hoare catching up to his old fitness rather quickly.
I just looked at all the results. The meet had mostly stellar performances or at least decent. Not that many abysmal. A few events were adversely affected by headwinds, e.g. the men's & women's 100m. Overall the mid distance and distance events were very solid. The sparse crowd was a downer but it's L.A. Too bad the great weather can't be magically transported to areas of the U.S. with a more passionate fan base.
As someone who just moved from the LA area i can understand low attendance. LA is becoming the land of a few "haves" and many "have nots", in part due to high cost of living in CA. I suspect many of those with the interest in T&F are more in the "have not" category (at least at this point in their life). Coupled with the idea of driving to/from the west side of LA on a Friday night makes it even less of interest, especially since the "haves" could sit home and stream. I never went to Mt Sac or Bryan Clay or anything due to traffic - just once went to JSerra to see Jakob et al but drive down 6 hours early to avoid the traffic.
Are SoCal meets noticeably advertised to the general public? It’ll be interesting to see if attendance at NCAA East Regionals in Lexington, KY is any better than at LA Grand Prix, Mt Sac & Bryan Clay. It doesn't appear that the Prelim meet is being featured as an Olympics preview (despite the presence of aspiring Olympians such as Ramsden, Rose, Markezich, Thorner, Valby, Clemons, Davis, Morales Williams, Mountain and others), nor has it been visibly promoted anywhere east of the Mississippi. Unfortunate and sad, as this meet is affordable to most anyone (a four-day/all-session ticket costs $50), local accomodations are dirt cheap compared to LA (and Eugene) and Lexington is just a six-hr drive from Canada and most of the southern & midwestern states.
I wouldn't know about any meet without Let's Run. I visit my parents in Orange County for extended periods of time so have been lucky enough to go to The Ten a couple of times at JSerra (missed the Jakob year though!) with very little effort. Enjoyed it, so thought nothing of driving an hour and a half to go to UCLA, considering Kiplimo and Cheptegei would be there. When I saw the track though, I thought there was something wrong with my eyesight. Even from the first row of seats (and there was plenty of open seating), the athletes looked far away and blurry and it definitely seems a better experience on TV. (also the track's kind of busted so it added to the blurriness)
Got spoiled by the bleachers at JSerra being right on top of the track. And being able to see everyone warm up and do strides. At Drake, they are doing all that on the other side of the stadium where there's no seating. And even though there are more people at the UCLA stadium, JSerra seems louder and denser with a bunch of hyped high schoolers yelling at Grant Fisher. It was cool seeing the campus and the times of the 5,000 were great but you didn't really sense that in the crowd, that there was any importance to it. (Maybe my fault for not trying to sit near the finish line.) All I got out of it was wow, Morgan McDonald is really bigger than everyone else and/or he has really good posture. It was cool to see ESP just dominate. But if it weren't for the burrito excursion I had planned after, I don't think it would've been worth the drive. There was no signage at all on campus pointing to a world-class meet. I kinda think more students would go out of curiosity if there was signage teasing "THE UGANDANS ARE HERE" with no other explanation. Cause people hover outside the stadium looking on for a little while to see what's going on. And then they move on.