Another interesting greek site

Influenced by my discussion with my friend K. Tsagkarakis, I decided to published an article on two interesting athletics-related greek sites. And then I realised that there was a greek site that I have been following over the years, in  quest of greek news, but I never wrote about it. I know that most readers of my blog do not care much about greek news, and the fact that the site is in greek makes things more difficult, but I feel that it is only fair to mention a site that has been really active for many years. I am talking about Stivoz.gr.

Contrary to the two other sites I mentioned in that previous post of mine, StivoZ is rather understated. One is greeted by a mostly black page (does this ring a bell?) and one has to scroll to the bottom of the page in order to find the most recent international news accompanied by photos. 

There is also one thing I like in the StivoZ site. They have an entry for records and there under the "jumps" submenu they are presenting the disciplines in the order: long jump, triple jump, high jump, pole vault. This is the order I learned when I started interesting myself in athletics and only much later I discovered that the commonly accepted order places the vertical jumps before the horizontal. Perhaps the traditional greek order has to do with the fact that the long jump was the only traditionally greek jump. But, the other hand, if this were true why do we adopt the order shot put, discus throw, javelin throw and hammer throw instead of starting with the two "greek" disciplines discus and javelin? Be that as it may, discovering that StivoZ is still using what I consider the greek order was a moment of nostalgia.

Stop the presses: go visit Décapassion

My friends Frédéric and Pierre Gousset did it again. They just published a fabulous article that anyone who is interested in combined events must read. 

The title of the article says that the article compares the decathlon records of each event to the corresponding world records since 1911.

But the title does not do justice to the article. Instead of a drab comparison, we are treated to a mini-history of the decathlon extending over more than a century.  (And the pure data are there, for the purists, and can be freely downloaded for future reference).

Only the Gousset could have produced such a gem. So, do not hesitate. If you do not speak french, ask Google to translate the page for you. And you will understand why I am so enthusiastic about it.

Where we talk, once more, about innovation

A few months back I published an article entitled "The future of Athletics?". The motivation for this was the pretentious mail received by World Athletics, entitled "Help shape the future of Athletics" announcing a competition to be held in Fribourg and which turned to be a real disaster. If you are interested in the details you can read my article, but you can take my word concerning the competition which was totally botched, both in the "innovations" tried out and in the video coverage. If World Athletics approach to innovation is even remotely resembling the one of Fribourg we must brace for the worst.

The word innovation appeared again in an article, published recently in the WA website which prompted me to revisit last year's article "Sport and event innovation central pillar in World Athletics’ four-year business strategy". Five points (if we discard the intentionally vague, strategy-oriented and of dubious value statements) were highlighted in that article:

New events such as a mixed 4x100m relay and a steeplechase mile

A take-off zone for horizontal jumps

Improved efficiency of measurements

New ways to decide tie-breakers in jumps using new technology

Reviewing the weights of women’s shot put and javelin

In the article mentioned at the beginning of this post I went through these proposals and made extensive comments. In the light of the recent publication, it is time for an update.

The most important "innovation" is the take-off zone for horizontal jumps, something I have been advocating for years. More than ten years ago I wrote an article entitled "Longer jumps" where I proposed a 60 cm wide take-off board. Unfortunately, the ever-hesitant World Athletics, are orienting themselves towards a 40 cm board. Still, the effect of a wider board is visible. Based on data from two competitions in Düsseldorf and in Berlin, there were just 13 % fouls, while the statistical foul probability is 32 %. And, what is more, counting the potential fouls, if the jumps were judged with the traditional rules, the percentage rose to 66 %, meaning that the athletes are taking greater risks in order to profit from the wider board. Although there are not enough results yet, allowing to draw solid conclusions, it appears that the new system is bringing a 10+ cm improvement to the athletes' performances. (I am convinced that a 60 cm board would allow a practically zero-foul event, leading to an even greater gain in the jump length).

The mixed 4x100 m relay will be tested at the 2025 World Relays. (I just hope that they will not botch the event like they did with the shuttle relay, which is the only race not lending itself to a mixed configuration). Having proposed this event in this blog I am totally in favour of its introduction. 

The steeplechase mile is also a good addition, although I would have favoured a 5000 m race instead. On the other hand, given that a 800 m hurdles looks very difficult to set up, from a practical point of view, I guess that the steeple mile is the best we can hope for. 

One thing that was not mentioned this time was the point concerning the weight of women's implements, in particular shot put and javelin. I guess that people at WA decided to use their heads and concluded that disrupting the shot put for a small gain was not justified, while for javelin there is nothing you can do in order to reach parity (unless you decide to make men's javelin substantially heavier).

There are few other points mentioned in the recent WA article (predictions, timetable design, instant results) but what attracted my attention was the entry "combined events", that I reproduce verbatim.

"As part of our data sampling, we have gathered multiple data sets related to combined events; not only from the international top level, but also across all levels of the sport, including grassroots participation. The intention is to share this information with the wider community later this year and provide insights for discussion of the status of combined events".

I don't know how to parse this. Is this cryptic statement allowing some hope for a women's decathlon to enter the official World Athletics program? Time will tell (or, knowing World Athletics, perhaps not).

Finally among the future plans one finds interesting items like the return of the 200 m hurdles and false start rules. (I just hope that the latter will be a replacement of the 100 ms rule by something more realistic and not the rigmarole we saw in Fribourg). Street and off-road running will profit from new formats. And the article concludes with a vague reference to vertical jumps where there is question of "height progression protocols", whatever that is. Unless there is question of allowing for a limited number of attempts to distribute as the athlete wishes.

I don't trust World Athletics: they are timorous when it comes to change and I will believe their commitment to innovation when I see it. But, rest assured, I am going to follow the matter closely, reporting regularly here.