Pole Vault: Fly as High as You Can

F, for epic fail

This was an attempt to turn the pole vault into an event like the horizontal jumps and throws, where each athlete gets six attempts and their best attempt counts. The highest height achieved wins the competition.

The problem with this was the bar was set much lower and it was unclear how the height was measured, with some athletes looking like they got miles above the bar, only for the measurement to be much lower than someone who appeared not to have jumped as high. It was not great for spectators who had no idea what was a good jump, nor did the athletes have any idea what was going on with their measurements. Without an actual bar close to the relevant height, it was clearly not so easy for athletes to maximize their high point correctly.

The greatness of the vertical jumps is in the clutch third attempts, the instant reaction from both athletes and spectators knowing a bar has been cleared and the tactics around passing attempts and skipping heights.

The nightmare for meet organizers that World Athletics may be trying to solve is the uncertainty over how long a competition might take. However, without a broader goal in mind around meet presentation, this kind of change only serves to make the event worse rather than better. The only potential benefit I can see to this would be to use it to break a tie to determine who wins a competition by looking at the height by which the highest bar is cleared.

Javelin Throw: Fun with Flags

A+ for presentation

Though not directly affecting the competition itself, this was a genius idea to improve the presentation of the event, and would be great to implement across all the long throws. Each athlete’s furthest throw was marked with a flag which then made it much easier for the audience to engage with the distances thrown, and know whether a throw was good or not. I wonder whether it may even help athletes better judge their throws.

The second innovation was not to measure a throw if it was shorter than that athlete’s previous furthest throw in the competition. In theory this was to make the competition faster, but it was unclear if it was successful in doing so. Surely the best innovations would be in technology to more accurately and quickly measure throws. I will never be convinced that judges ‘eyeballing’ the point of impact from a few meters away is 100% accurate, particularly when the discus Olympic gold was won by a paltry 3cm.

Long Jump: Jump from Wherever You Like

C, doesn’t solve anything

This is the first time we got to see the much maligned long jump takeoff zone in action. Things got off to an inauspicious start when the technology to measure the jumps (expected to be much quicker) failed spectacularly to deliver results in the first round. Even when it did start working it didn’t seem to make things significantly quicker.

Athletes were unsure how far they had jumped, and viewers on the live stream were left doing math in their head as the only information we received initially was the distance behind the foul line that we were trying to add to whatever distance we felt the athlete may have jumped into the pit. Not great for spectators, or it seemed for the athletes either. And one athlete still managed to foul even with the larger take off zone! I imagine it is something that will get trialed again, but it does seem to be trying again to solve a different problem to the one that actually exists, which is one of storytelling and presentation around the athletes over the course of a meet.

Steeplechase Mile

A, for entertainment

This was an enjoyable watch, so I’d be happy to see this contested on more occasions. However, after Lamecha Girma’s rather worrying fall in Paris, it seems that having athletes tackle the immovable steeplechase barriers at a higher speed, more severe lactic burn, and likely with less separation from other athletes, will be a high-risk endeavor. Those concerns aside, it could be slightly more fun as a championship event than the 3000m steeplechase, but it would be a shame if there was nowhere for the 3000m specialists to go, who at least (for now) have the steeplechase to try their hand at.

Team Competition

B +, a concept with potential

The format of the meet was intriguing, with six team captains drawing their teams the day before. Many of the athletes really got into the spirit of the competition and cheering on their teammates, and the likes of an injured Julius Yego even threw through severe pain to secure a point for his team. With any sort of team competition it does require fans to build a relationship with a team over time, but could add an intriguing angle to events like the Diamond League if implemented correctly. Potentially shoe brands or other sponsors could bring together and send teams and this could help thread the season together better, even where the same athletes are not competing at every meet.

The Live Stream

A, for effort

Firstly a shout out to Matt Seddon who did an amazing job of commentating solo and keeping the energy up for the whole length of the meet, as well as doing a creditable job on the field events given his distance speciality. We hope to hear his voice on more international commentary streams soon!

There were multiple attempts at creative camera angles. Some of the drone shots were cool and offered great new perspectives. But call me a traditionalist, I prefer to see all the competitors in the field for the whole length of a sprint race to see how the race is playing out and who is winning. For the replays, show us all the cool angles you like. For the pole vault, a vomit inducing 360 spin around the bars whilst the athlete is airborne is most certainly not the way forward!

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