at hl e t ic s 19
at hl e t ic s 19
In a time poor society, drawn out meets will become a thing of the past and highlights will be accentuated by theatrical presentation, resulting in a stronger, commercially viable sport. That’ s the theory anyway, but has anybody hit upon the right formula?
“ We insist that meetings are no longer than two hours,” said European Athletics Association vicepresident José Luis de Carlos.
“ It’ s no longer useful to have meetings that are three or four hours long because European Athletics meetings are fighting with other sports and other spectacles for the attention of the TV viewer, who has many options that were not there a decade ago.
“ We have to improve event presentation and get meeting organisers thinking hard about this issue.”
What does this mean to Australia’ s best performing athletics meet – the Sydney Track Classic – which has a three and a half hour long program that even includes a 5000m walk? Perhaps the recent Athletic All Stars meet – conducted by the same set of key officials from Athletics NSW but under a much different brief from meet director Hayden Knowles than comes from Athletics Australia, gives an insight.
The All Stars meet proved to be the biggest athletics spectacle since the Sydney Olympics- which was coincidently celebrating its 10 year anniversary. Rolls
Royce Phantom, Stretch Hummers and Harley Davidson entrances to the track set the theme for the night. The All Star Challenge was perhaps not an event for athletics purists, but it did however bring athletics to the masses in an exciting format.
The star of the night was Usain Bolt and whilst he did not race against Australia’ s fastest footballer’ s he did participate in the‘ Celebrity Relay’- anchoring the aptly named‘ Team Bolt’. Bolt received the baton in second place- it was then he started celebrating. Within
Broadcaster Alan jones described bolt as being‘ right at the top of the tree’ in terms of sporting stars