gh wrote:His premise sounds like it makes sense, but w/ the Gay-Powell-Bolt drama, I'm not sure the are many times when the interest has been higher!
That's the irony of the situation really. The damage the drugs scandals cause are completely dependent on how healthy the sport is in the first place.
If it was just one guy dominating, public interest in the 100 would have been far more damaged by all the drug revelations. With the 3 fastest guys in history duking it out, people can't help but care about the result.
gh wrote:His premise sounds like it makes sense, but w/ the Gay-Powell-Bolt drama, I'm not sure the are many times when the interest has been higher!
On another thread, gh rote:
gh wrote:Drugs have very little to do with it. Track's irreversible fall from public grace began in 1958 when football and baseball changed the sporting landscape. Given the option to watch a team game, Joe Sixpak will take that over a track meet any day. Once that became an option 24 hours a day, track became minimalized. That's the reality.
In fairness to gh, which phonetically can rhyme with "ff", the discussion may have been perceived as having veered toward a more myopic, USA-centric view of things, on that other thread.
If there is such a thing as karma, Carl Lewis may come back as Ben Johnson's student in a "future" life....
In general he's right, and it's not just US either. Substitute other sports and you could say the same for just about every other nation on earth.
But there's a major difference between generally public interest in track for 206 weeks out of every 208 and what we're talking about here, the Olympic 100m ...
I won't bother asking anyone how to find out how popular track and field is, since my efforts at digging up "interesting things" seem to be worse than unappreciated around here. Figures - you have someone who tries hard to make things a bit less drab and routine for people, then the mods send some little shithead to tell him to shut the fuck up.
I won't bother asking anyone how to find out how popular track and field is, since my efforts at digging up "interesting things" seem to be worse than unappreciated around here. Figures - you have someone who tries hard to make things a bit less drab and routine for people, then the mods send some little shithead to tell him to shut the fuck up.
Novitiate wrote:Let them speak for themselves. I'm sick and tired of the hypocrisy that goes on around this very little place. I smelled a rat, named cacique....
I won't wait to apologize for my language today. Ping me when you get in Ben - wait, that'd be too late!
Somebody get up on the wrong side of the bed today?
gh wrote:His premise sounds like it makes sense, but w/ the Gay-Powell-Bolt drama, I'm not sure the are many times when the interest has been higher!
Among track fans you may be correct but maybe he is referring, to the Joe Blo sports fan, and, as was shown on T&FN website today, the popularity of T&F is now below swimming. Sprinting has been one of the bigger marketing items in T&F and damage to that damages the whole sport more than say walkers.
Conor Dary wrote:" I read this and got a good laugh. I think The Times' Simon Barnes is the one with the correct view on this. (See home page)
Correct view? That is a sad statement. I think that view reflects the degredation of society. Cheating is no longer viewed by many as amoral but rather just part of life we should live with and embrace.
The Olympics and sport in general was intended to be based on fair play.
Drug testing is not ruining the sport, the cheaters are and those that come to tolerate them. If it turns out that people will not participate without cheating, then the sport has no business being a sport.
odelltrclan wrote:I think that view reflects the degredation of society. Cheating is no longer viewed by many as amoral but rather just part of life we should live with and embrace.
Unfortunately this is exactly right.
A Duke University study shows that 75 percent of students admit to cheating. 90 percent of student admit to copying someone’s paper.
Denise Pope, adjunct professor in the School of Education at Stanford University says, "Nationally, 75 percent of all high school students cheat. But the ones who cheat more are the ones who have the most to lose, which is the honors and AP (advanced placement) students. Eighty percent of honors and AP students cheat on a regular basis." [Regan McMahan, San Francisco Gate.com, sfgate.com, September 9, 2007] Therefore, the better the student--the more likely they are cheating. Source
My experiences corrolate well with the above. More often the students caught cheating would have been A students.
Conor Dary wrote:" I read this and got a good laugh. I think The Times' Simon Barnes is the one with the correct view on this. (See home page)
Correct view? That is a sad statement. I think that view reflects the degredation of society. Cheating is no longer viewed by many as amoral but rather just part of life we should live with and embrace.
The Olympics and sport in general was intended to be based on fair play. Drug testing is not ruining the sport, the cheaters are and those that come to tolerate them. If it turns out that people will not participate without cheating, then the sport has no business being a sport.
Conor Dary wrote:"If it turns out that people will not participate without cheating, then the sport has no business being a sport."
Exactly. Now you get it.
Over the last couple of days, I have discussed the Beijing Olympics with friends/relatives in Europe/Asia/Australia. There is a general lack of interest and everyone mentioned drugs and other modes of cheating. A good start may be to be reset the WRs to the year 2000 or so (suggested by gh and others I believe), and carry out rigorous and random drug testing. Women's TF in most standard (old) events are interesting, but only to the cognoscenti. When you have the current top performers in many events performing at early 1970s levels, something is totally amiss. What happened to improved nutrition, training techniques, equipment, tracks?
catson52 wrote:When you have the current top performers in many events performing at early 1970s levels, something is totally amiss. What happened to improved nutrition, training techniques, equipment, tracks?
ignoring throws where drugs explained most, distance events have moved on - pamela at 1'54 is at least capable of high-1'53 before career end & defar/diby are capable of 3'54 now ! & kazankina's ole 8'22 standard got well 'n' truely buried when defar ran 8'58 ( convert that with standard 1.08 )
main problem is sprints
trouble is we do have small, puny rubbish running it - usual 5'7 - 5'9 size gals from 2 decades ago & that's why we are still only getting 10.8/21.9 ( 21.8 with big wind on fastest legal track built )
looking at men's side, we got many 9.7s ( & some 19.6s ) when 6'3 (+) guys like safa/bolt/wally/x-man started arriving
the big tall dudes started turning up & started destroying 9.8/19.7
where are the 5'11/6'0 dudettes to do the same for 10.7/21.6 ?
answer :
not drawing on same quality of talent pool as dudes
dudettes m i a , probably hairdressing or business managent or p a
