Christian Taylor on taking track and field to the streets
If he was king for a day, world and Olympic champion triple jumper Christian Taylor would have more athletics competitions on America’s streets.
Francena McCorory’s track beats dream
SPIKES has made Francena McCorory boss for a day and things just got interesting. The US Olympic 4x400m gold medallist and Jacko fan thinks athletes should be able to listen to their favourite tunes on the track.
Eaton: “Decathlon should have a hand in the Diamond League”
Olympic long jumper DeLoach wants to see some perspective
We’ve put Olympic long jump bronze medallist Janay DeLoach in charge of global athletics for a day. She’s changing two things: rewarding consistency over distance, and adding a little bit of perspective.
Ivet Lalova wants to spice up athletics
European 100m champion and track pin-up Ivet Lalova wants to see more athletics in interesting places, and some very different kind of races.
If SPIKES could change the rules…
Elite athletes past and present have been telling SPIKES how they would change the rules and shake-up athletics (you can read them all here). Now it’s our turn: so brace yourselves for sixty action-packed minutes of multi-eventing as we introduce the ’60-minute pentathlon’…
Joanna Hayes: Get your kits off and customise
2004 Olympic 100m hurdles champion Joanna Hayes wants to see athletes wearing customised kits.
Athletics’ big thinker looks to rugby and cricket for inspiration
US 2004 Olympic shot put champion Adam Nelson is one of the sport’s great thinkers, and the vice president of the Track & Field Athletes Association. He believes the sport needs major structural reform.
“The problem with change is it usually means someone has to give up something – privacy, marketing rights, comfort – in order for the change to take place. Allowing the media and fans greater access to the athletes during warm-up or in the call room requires the athletes to change the way they prepare.
“Opening the rules on athlete sponsorship requires a change in the dynamic between sponsors, agents, and athletes. New advances in drug testing are often accompanied by massive invasions of privacy. Changes to competitive rules usually require some acclimation. It doesn’t matter what you change, someone’s going to get frustrated with it.
Aries Merritt’s hurdles shake-up
World 110m hurdles record holder Aries Merritt wants to see more exhibition events for his discipline. Now, that’s a good idea.
“I would think exhibition races and running different hurdle distances would be good, like the 200m hurdles, now that would suit me perfectly because I can run a good 200m and already have the hurdles technique.
Jamie Nieto’s extreme athletics
We’ve had some great ideas for the SPIKES manifesto #rulechange, and today we’ve found a US high jumper with a working knowledge of the silver screen. It’s TV’s Jamie Nieto! And he wants track and field to get extreme.
If Kevin could change the rules…
World 400m hurdles record holder and 1992 Olympic champion Kevin Young wants to see a global league for athletics.
“I believe stronger teams need to be set up to help the athletes, raise the profile of the sport and help fans identify more with athletics. We have a strong fan base but following and supporting teams would help more.
“We could have teams based in the world’s big cities and athletes could switch between teams like the top footballers do. Back in the 1970s and 80s in the US we had a stronger team structure, with the likes of Pacific Coast Club and Santa Monica Track Club.
“Each big meeting would be run with points available for each event and the overall winner of each competition would be the team with most points. The top eight or nine teams in the series could then come together for the final.
“Things could be spiced up with transfers between clubs during the season and extra points could be awarded for athletes running outside of their own events. Imagine if Bolt wanted to run a quarter mile and was awarded double points? Wow!”
If Colin could change the rules…
Two-time world 110m hurdles champion and TV pundit Colin Jackson wants to shake-up the average athletics meet.
I would introduce more novelty events and I would like to bring together different stars from different events to create some sort of hybrid competitions. I believe this would really create a bit of a stir and generate more interest.
Why not have a 150m sprint race? This would bring together the 100m and 200m specialists. How about an 80m hurdles, where the 60m hurdles specialists would clash with the 110m hurdles exponents?
Handicap races would also a great addition, even if you were to introduce them like a prologue before the main meeting.
I also think some sort of mini-decathlon would be great. When I was competing I could have easily have done a triangle competition of 110m hurdles, 100m and long jump. I would have loved to have done that.
I also support more street competitions. This really helps attract a different kind of athletics fan, one who wouldn’t normally attend an authentic track and field meeting. Both Newcastle and Manchester (UK Great City Games) host annual street athletics competitions and what each has shown is that there’s a real appetite for that kind of athletics.
