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.
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