Why I don't like the Grand Slam Track

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on the Grand Slam Track event created by M. Johnson where I was criticising it mainly because I don't appreciate Johnson. But not only. Somehow I could not relate with the formula proposed by the GST. Already in my previous article I had written that I found that the short-lived "Nitro", promoted by U. Bolt, had more variety. And then I stumbled upon a YouTube video by somebody under the nickname of Jumpman and it put to words what I was intuitively feeling.  

Let's take a Diamond League meeting. The main program lasts roughly two hours and comprises around 10 track and 5 field events. The whole duration of the track events does not exceed 30 minutes. So, out of the two hours only a quarter of the time is there something to watch on track. The remaining time is filled by the field events which can be held in parallel and have an additive duration exceeding the two hours. 

So, what happens when you organise an event like the GST? Since there are no field events and there is no way to compress the track events beyond some point (hurdles have to be installed and removed, judges have to move to the various start locations), the "empty" time can be quite long. Jumpman estimates that less than 10 % of the time there is something taking place on the track. So despite the presence of some of the best athletes of the world the competition can at times become boring.

Speaking about the best athletes, one can remark that money is a great incentive. The outdoor season has just started and S. McLaughlin has already raced twice (both over the hurdles and the flat 400 m) while in previous years one had to wait till the US Trials to watch her first competition. In GST, raking 100 k dollars for every win, she is willing to take the risk of starting her season unusually early. 

But of course not everything is bad about GST. Quite the opposite. It's an occasion for great performances like the fabulous 12.17 of M. Russell in the 100 m hurdles. And also the occasion to see some athletes like A. Hall (to my opinion the best "young" heptathlete out there, the one that can succeed Thiam, and also the only one that can break N. Debois' legendary 800 m heptathlon record) that we don't see often enough. (Hall ran the 400 m hurdles in Miami, with 54.43 s at just 0.01 s off her personal best).

Besides Grand Slam Track there is another event organised recently by the great R. Crouser. It is called the World Shot Put Series and was held at the end of April. And, while it comprised just one event, I found the formula more interesting than the one of GST. 

Here is how the WSPS works. Before proceeding I must say that the whole thing is US-centric to a point that it feels gross: measures in feet, referees dressed and using hand signals as in baseball, measures using a chain as in football (the american one) and so on. If Crouser wishes to make his World Series a real international event he must abandon this US-kowtowing rigmarole. But the basic idea is great.

The athletes must throw beyond a fixed mark. They have two attempts at each distance (and one "challenge" to be used once for an extra attempt). Target distances advance by 10 ft (~3 m) increments up to 60 ft (~18 m). (Probably that's where the competition starts at high level). Beyond 60 ft, the increments are of 2 ft (~60 cm) up to 70 ft (~21 m) and beyond this the increments are of just 1 foot. (And there is also a proviso for the tie-breaks). There is nothing in these rules that cannot be made metric. And reducing the increments to 50 an 25 cm will give the athletes the opportunity to "throw more". In fact this is a major appeal of the WSPS formula. While in a "normal" competition an athlete can hope to throw six times, here an athlete starting at 18 m and going to 22 m will have thrown more than 10 times, probably close to 15 with a reasonable number of misses.

I don't know the financial details of the World Shot Put Series. But perhaps nothing was fixed in this year's competition, which was, in Crouser's words, intended as a "soft launch" of the event. In any case, the winner, R. Steen, went home with a championship belt, just like boxing champions do. Next year's competition (provided it materialises) will have two groups, an "open field", for "ordinary" throwers and a professional field with eight among the best world throwers. I will keep an eye open and report here.