Eugene awarded 2021 IAAF World Championships

[baron-pierreIV]

I couldn't find much more on how they are awarding medals here, other than: 

Track and field medals traditionally are presented during medal ceremonies, but organizers said medal-winning athletes at Oregon22 will receive their medals immediately after their event finals. Full medal ceremonies including national anthems still will take place later.

From: Here’s what the World Athletics Championships Oregon22 medals look like - oregonlive.com 

So I really don't understand how they are tweaking this.  Of course, the labs shouldn't be overworked now since the cheatin' RUsskies aren't there, but like the IOC, I think the IAAF wants to clean up its final roster of medalists and none of the re-dos afterwards.  And they pretty much just have one venue -- so the awards will probably come by grouping and at the end of the day??  

[baron-pierreIV]

I don't know if that "provisional medal" thing is successful.  From what I have seen, the gold medalists immediately take it off and then run around doing their thing and just hold on to the plastic medal.  It's only later they are prevailed upon to put it back on.  O guess the gold medalists don't really care for it.  

[SportLightning]

After this, then off to Budapest for 2023.

[Bull Schmidt]

I don’t know enough to know what is meant by “medals ceremonies” as baron-pierre references. You mean offsite as done at a Winter Olympics? 
What’s been happening in Eugene is the ceremonies taking place at the end of the session, with medals awarded for the previous night’s last event and all except for that night’s last event (the drug testing obviously a factor). Eugene has been running a Riverside Festival during the games, but last weekend, one of the local news broadcasts described the crowds as in the “hundreds”). 
Maybe I’ll tell my wife’s story in response to further comments, but we noticed that, if anything, it seems like many residents of Eugene decided to take vacations during these games. We had an easy time at an old friend’s brewpub further away from both downtown and the campus. That frankly helped, because hospitalizations have been up in the Northwest the last couple weeks. Suffice it to say my N-95s were on inside the stadium, and I wasn’t the only one.

The only real crowds I saw outside the stadium were directly around the campus, and on the trails near the campus walking or running. Even a few people hanging around Pre’s Rock, but not too many (sadly, for having gone to school at U of Oregon, I had never been to that site… though I’d been at a couple parties at Hendricks Park in my time). 
The stadium is mostly wonderful. Somewhat larger seats even I could fit, rather steep pitch, so it can look like it holds 25,000 but is only 12,650 plus bleachers, more legroom than I’m accustomed to experiencing. Contrast to last night’s Timbers game in Portland, where one of the appreciably sauced fans above me had their foot all but in my crack for a minute.

The flaw is the roof, which is not much of a roof if it rains, and some believe it acts as more of a magnifying glass when it gets hot and sunny, specifically in lower level seats. Fortunately, only about 3 days were what we here consider hot during these games. This event is missing the “freaking hot” by two days this week.

The thing that struck me about these games… it felt like half the stadium had credentials. All the athletes, coaches, media, officials, handlers, volunteers from out of town… that’s a substantial population in itself. The 2nd night I attended, there’s a Ugandan athlete with a friend, the athlete taking one of my seats. I think they were speaking Swahili, but it was easy to tell to what they were reacting. They stayed until the last two races of the night. Meanwhile, there’s athletes peppered all over the concourse, there’s Jamaican fans with plastic horns all over, and I don’t soon forget Woo Sang-hyeok’s supporters. That’s the best part of this.

So, while Eugene knows it’s Athletics, and while the pandemic arguably influenced a lot of what has happened this year, I’ll argue that even Eugene has suffered a bit of event fatigue at Hayward. In another circumstance, I would argue that this event DID overwhelm Eugene. Hosting the NCAAs every year perhaps shouldn’t be the aim (though it must be in the rotation)… the Prefontaine Classic will always be here anyway. Hayward is anything but a white elephant, HOWEVER, this event does belong in a larger American market. Thing is, someone has to meet IAAF halfway and build something that’s a permanent Athletics facility. Doesn’t have to be all permanent seats. But it would help with the sport, it would probably get used annually as a second Diamond League American facility annually, and it can take some stuff that’s frankly too much to be just in Eugene. Who wants to try?

[Bull Schmidt]

An addendum to what I just wrote…

https://www.oregonlive.com/oregon22/2022/07/how-did-oregon22-go-locals-visitors-reflect-on-big-10-days-in-eugene.html

 

[SportLightning]

10 days for this on the final day of Oregon 2022. On to Budapest 2023.

[Nacre]

4 hours ago, Bull Schmidt said:

Thing is, someone has to meet IAAF halfway and build something that’s a permanent Athletics facility. Doesn’t have to be all permanent seats. But it would help with the sport, it would probably get used annually as a second Diamond League American facility annually, and it can take some stuff that’s frankly too much to be just in Eugene. Who wants to try?

I think that there are a few problems.

1) The only logical permanent tenant is a university, and most of America's big universities are not located in our biggest cities. (IE University of Oregon in Eugene instead of Portland.) 

2) There's very little ability for the USOC or civic governments to pressure the NFL and the universities to do what's in the interest of the city for hosting events like these.

old husky stadium - Bing images

Seattle isn't big enough for the Olympics but it's large enough for individual world championships, and could have hosted the athletics championships when Husky Stadium still had a track. For the amount of public money put into two new football stadiums (for the NFL and college football) Seattle could have built a stadium like Stade de France w/ retractable seating in the lower bowl. But the Seahawks and Huskies not only wanted a permanent football-only stadium, they didn't accept having to share a dedicated football stadium with each other. 

3) There isn't enough funding for the legacy events. If New York City couldn't muster enough sponsorship to keep their Diamond League meet running in the black, it doesn't bode well for a city like Seattle or Minneapolis trying to break even on athletics events.

[Bull Schmidt]

4 hours ago, Nacre said:

I think that there are a few problems.

1) The only logical permanent tenant is a university, and most of America's big universities are not located in our biggest cities. (IE University of Oregon in Eugene instead of Portland.) 

2) There's very little ability for the USOC or civic governments to pressure the NFL and the universities to do what's in the interest of the city for hosting events like these.

old husky stadium - Bing images

Seattle isn't big enough for the Olympics but it's large enough for individual world championships, and could have hosted the athletics championships when Husky Stadium still had a track. For the amount of public money put into two new football stadiums (for the NFL and college football) Seattle could have built a stadium like Stade de France w/ retractable seating in the lower bowl. But the Seahawks and Huskies not only wanted a permanent football-only stadium, they didn't accept having to share a dedicated football stadium with each other. 

3) There isn't enough funding for the legacy events. If New York City couldn't muster enough sponsorship to keep their Diamond League meet running in the black, it doesn't bode well for a city like Seattle or Minneapolis trying to break even on athletics events.

Get any notion of sharing with the NFL, and any notion this will be bigger than 30,000 seats, out of your mind. That’s not the angle to take.

It has been easier in the last decade for cities to build stadia for MLS than it has NFL. There will be a city or two where the college football program dies and MLS exists elsewhere in the area and a 20-30K stadium can be redone for a broader set of purposes than what the NFL can offer in stadiums too big for most any other activity.

By the way, when the Goodwill Games were in Husky Stadium, they couldn’t even sell upper deck seats because people outside the front row upstairs couldn’t see the track directly below them. Those upper deck expansions were never built for athletics. (Yes, I was there for a night)

[baron-pierreIV]

12 hours ago, Bull Schmidt said:

I don’t know enough to know what is meant by “medals ceremonies” as baron-pierre references. You mean offsite as done at a Winter Olympics? 

It's when -- like here @ WAC Oregon 22 -- you have the entire stadium's attention, all competition from the track and field are done; they've rolled out the 3 award podia, the winners have been properly groomed and dressed in their awards suits, and the TRUE gold, silver and bronze medals given out -- and what I think is a first in a major international meet, the "flags" are just shown digitally on the jumbotrons instead of the actual cloth flag-raising ceremony with attendants.  

I guess because everything is so tight there in Hayward, there was no other place to do it but on the track itself, while the audience was still there but after all competition on FOP had ceased and proper respect could be paid to the ceremony.  So, Bull, no -- not offsite but right there on the field.  

[Quaker2001]

15 hours ago, Bull Schmidt said:

So, while Eugene knows it’s Athletics, and while the pandemic arguably influenced a lot of what has happened this year, I’ll argue that even Eugene has suffered a bit of event fatigue at Hayward. In another circumstance, I would argue that this event DID overwhelm Eugene. Hosting the NCAAs every year perhaps shouldn’t be the aim (though it must be in the rotation)… the Prefontaine Classic will always be here anyway. Hayward is anything but a white elephant, HOWEVER, this event does belong in a larger American market. Thing is, someone has to meet IAAF halfway and build something that’s a permanent Athletics facility. Doesn’t have to be all permanent seats. But it would help with the sport, it would probably get used annually as a second Diamond League American facility annually, and it can take some stuff that’s frankly too much to be just in Eugene. Who wants to try?

I can answer that.. the answer is no one.  You say "someone" has to meet the IAAF halfway, but who is that someone?  Who wants a purpose built 400 meter track in a stadium to host major events?  Like you said, easier to build an MLS stadium seating 20k-30k, but the footprint of an athletics venue makes it incompatible with about everything else.  

Nacre has the right idea that it should be a D-1 college leading the effort.  Easier said than done to find a school to make that commitment.  We saw what happened in Seattle where they had a large stadium with a track but they got rid of it because it was bad for football.  And if we've learned anything about college sports in recent year, it's that there's football and then there's everything else.

So I don't think there's a good solution here.  Which is a shame for what has traditionally been the centerpiece of the Olympics and it can't gain a foothold in this country for a number of reasons.  At least we had this one, even if it's the last time we'll have this event in our country for a long time to come

[Nacre]

9 hours ago, Bull Schmidt said:

Get any notion of sharing with the NFL, and any notion this will be bigger than 30,000 seats, out of your mind. That’s not the angle to take.

It has been easier in the last decade for cities to build stadia for MLS than it has NFL. There will be a city or two where the college football program dies and MLS exists elsewhere in the area and a 20-30K stadium can be redone for a broader set of purposes than what the NFL can offer in stadiums too big for most any other activity.

MLS teams don't want a track in their stadiums either, though. The only way to get any of the major league teams or a university to accept a multipurpose stadium would be through coercion. And we have seen that even when a team is demanding hundreds of millions of public dollars for their stadium, the city does not have the power to get a multipurpose stadium.

As for size, I don't think 15,000-30,000 seats is any kind of panacea. Let's say that a university has a 60,000 seat stadium for football. Are they going to want to have to maintain a second stadium with 15,000 seats for track and field alone? Oregon is probably the only school in the country that will say "yes" to that, and even for Oregon the answer is only yes because they have Nike's running shoe industry pumping money into their program.

So the only realistic option would be for a city like New York to offer a couple hundred million for Columbia to upgrade their stadium which already has a track in it. If they made the seating bowl retractable (over the track) then it might also be acceptable to NYCFC. But it probably wouldn't be very palatable to New York taxpayers, Columbia or MLS.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Nacre

[Bear]

What about Weingart? It's 22k (which could probably be expanded), has experience hosting events (LA84 hockey tournaments being one of them), is used year round, and is pretty close to LA city.

Only issue is that there's 7 lanes while the standard is 9, so it would need to be renovated to fit a larger track

[Quaker2001]

10 minutes ago, Bear said:

What about Weingart? It's 22k (which could probably be expanded), has experience hosting events (LA84 hockey tournaments being one of them), is used year round, and is pretty close to LA city.

Only issue is that there's 7 lanes while the standard is 9, so it would need to be renovated to fit a larger track

So in other words.. it would need to be torn down and completely re-built from scratch.  Don't think that's the solution we're looking for here.

Think bigger.  The stadium in Eugene is backed by a major D-1 college and by Nike.  Not by East Los Angeles college

[Nacre]

Yeah, that's the sort of project that I think is possible: a college with public funding for a new or upgraded stadium being conditional for keeping the track. But that still leaves the problem of funding events like a Diamond League meet. And as Quaker notes, it's unlikely that a community college will have the rich alumni pool and corporate backers needed.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Nacre

[Quaker2001]

8 minutes ago, Nacre said:

Yeah, that's the sort of project that I think is possible: a college with public funding for a new or upgraded stadium being conditional for keeping the track. But that still leaves the problem of funding events like a Diamond League meet. And as Quaker notes, it's unlikely that a community college will have the rich alumni pool and corporate backers needed.

Exactly.  Now if UCLA wanted to rebuild a new version of Drake Stadium, that's the kind of thing that would get some traction.  But that would require desire and/or a will to want to get that project off the ground.  Not to mention a lot of money

[baron-pierreIV]

56 minutes ago, Bear said:

What about Weingart? It's 22k (which could probably be expanded), has experience hosting events (LA84 hockey tournaments being one of them), is used year round, and is pretty close to LA city.

Only issue is that there's 7 lanes while the standard is 9, so it would need to be renovated to fit a larger track

The 9-lane thing is a recent development made available by made-from-scratch stadia headed for an Olympics or a WAC.  It's not needed in college athletics, even a national championships.  A state-of-the-art Athletics track just requires too much precious real estate.  What did Nike spend for upgrading Hayward?  $80 mil or something like that.  Yeah, maybe a Jeff Bezos Stadium.  

[Quaker2001]

38 minutes ago, baron-pierreIV said:

The 9-lane thing is a recent development made available by made-from-scratch stadia headed for an Olympics or a WAC.  It's not needed in college athletics, even a national championships.  A state-of-the-art Athletics track just requires too much precious real estate.  What did Nike spend for upgrading Hayward?  $80 mil or something like that.  Yeah, maybe a Jeff Bezos Stadium.  

University of Oregon’s Lavish Nike-Fueled Track Stadium Cost $270 Million*

[Bull Schmidt]

I didn’t mention MLS stadium because I thought the league would buy into something like that… though if New York City made that a condition for a deal with NYCFC, the latter might have to accept. (Doesn’t seem like NYCFC is looking for a handout, just an acceptable plot of land within the city… which doesn’t seem to exist)

Oh, BTW, any attempt to base an analysis on Icahn Stadium? Oh heck no. Islands should rarely be stadium sites, no? Not that New York City is going to be anything but too expensive for this venture.

I meant that the size of that stadium is something a lot of cities have sought over the last few years because (1) it’s more likely to be used with the smaller number of seats than an NFL stadium, and (2) because MLS is not the all powerful 800-pound gorilla, and nobody else of import that would want a facility that small or big, a city might have a bit more leeway doing something.

Frankly, I’m looking at Philadelphia. Temple would like to have something for football that’s not so big and not the other side of town. Philly Union already has their own park way out there. Penn has the facility, has the Penn Relays, and you do have to wonder if the Ivy League will still play football in 15-20 years. Some sort of deal where a new football stadium is shared (for now) and Franklin Field reimagined, or where Penn shares and a track stadium with ample room for bleachers (because we don’t actually have to have 30K permanent seats, or even 20K permanent) is created… I could argue that the odds aren’t zero, anyway. 
There’s another tradition; the Palestra was shared for all those years. So it’s not unheard of there, the schools in the area are not THAT territorial, so arguably the Big Five sharing a track facility doesn’t seem to be out of the realm of possibility.

[Nacre]

Unfortunately there isn't enough physical space at Franklin Field. The current track is a non-regulation size because of this.

[Quaker2001]

7 minutes ago, Bull Schmidt said:

I didn’t mention MLS stadium because I thought the league would buy into something like that… though if New York City made that a condition for a deal with NYCFC, the latter might have to accept. (Doesn’t seem like NYCFC is looking for a handout, just an acceptable plot of land within the city… which doesn’t seem to exist)

Oh, BTW, any attempt to base an analysis on Icahn Stadium? Oh heck no. Islands should rarely be stadium sites, no? Not that New York City is going to be anything but too expensive for this venture.

New York City isn't going to do that and I don't think there's a mechanism to force it on them.  If they're going to build a 30,000 seat stadium in NYC, it's going to be built for soccer.  They don't need another track facility when they already have Icahn, even though that's too small to host any major meets.  And yes, public transportation there is a mess.  I experienced that first hand when I was there last month.  Plus, there's also the Armory in upper Manhattan and Mitchel Field out in Hempstead.  This area has track facilities, so there's no real demand for a new one that's only going to take away events from existing facilities.  Not really worth it if at most they're only getting 1 or 2 big events every year.

12 minutes ago, Bull Schmidt said:

Frankly, I’m looking at Philadelphia. Temple would like to have something for football that’s not so big and not the other side of town. Philly Union already has their own park way out there. Penn has the facility, has the Penn Relays, and you do have to wonder if the Ivy League will still play football in 15-20 years. Some sort of deal where a new football stadium is shared (for now) and Franklin Field reimagined, or where Penn shares and a track stadium with ample room for bleachers (because we don’t actually have to have 30K permanent seats, or even 20K permanent) is created… I could argue that the odds aren’t zero, anyway. 
There’s another tradition; the Palestra was shared for all those years. So it’s not unheard of there, the schools in the area are not THAT territorial, so arguably the Big Five sharing a track facility doesn’t seem to be out of the realm of possibility.

First off, Ivy League football isn't going anywhere so no, that's not something you have to wonder.  Rebuilding Franklin Field isn't an option.  The footprint of that stadium is already small (lane 1 of the track is less than 400 meters.. I believe it's lane 4 that represents the 400 meter circumference), so it's not like they could rebuild it into a downsized, but viable track stadium.  I'd say the odds are pretty close to zero and even if someone came along offering millions of dollars to fund it, I doubt they're going to tear down a historic facility that already can serve its purpose as a football stadium and home to the Penn Relays.  If the Philly schools want to share a track facility, what's wrong with the 1 they have now?  These aren't major D-1 schools that have the money and the wherewithal to push for a project like that.

[fatixxx]

The World Athletics Statistics Handbook

The Most Professional one ever in History

>> Oregon stats book.pdf (iaafmedia.s3.amazonaws.com)

[SportLightning]

On 7/25/2022 at 2:19 PM, Nacre said:

Unfortunately there isn't enough physical space at Franklin Field. The current track is a non-regulation size because of this.

What about Los Angeles for 2027 or 2029? The Memorial Colosseum seems like a good fit for the 26th or 27th World Athletics Championship.

[Quaker2001]

2 hours ago, SportLightning said:

What about Los Angeles for 2027 or 2029? The Memorial Colosseum seems like a good fit for the 26th or 27th World Athletics Championship.

It's the opposite of a good fit.  The Coliseum is undergoing a $300 million renovation for the Olympics in order to be a usable venue for track & field.  And that temporary overlay will then need to be removed after the games.  

The Coliseum is now operated by the University of Southern California.  They're not going to want to have to keep it in athletics mode for an additional year

[SportLightning]

4 minutes ago, Quaker2001 said:

It's the opposite of a good fit.  The Coliseum is undergoing a $300 million renovation for the Olympics in order to be a usable venue for track & field.  And that temporary overlay will then need to be removed after the games.  

The Coliseum is now operated by the University of Southern California.  They're not going to want to have to keep it in athletics mode for an additional year

Have a look at the link: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220725-us-mulls-more-events-after-world-championship-success

[baron-pierreIV]

10 hours ago, SportLightning said:

Have a look at the link: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220725-us-mulls-more-events-after-world-championship-success

Again, you don't understand it, do you?  USC is the main tenant of LA Memorial.  It is their main football field.  After LA 1984, when USC cemented its rights to the stadium, they sank the field 11 feet deeper (so about a 1-storey house) to make a good fit for their football field.  Another Olympics comes along after 44 years; and they will surrender use of the field for 3-4 months in which a (probable $50 million) platform will be added to bring back a track similar to the one used in 1984.  But that will be torn down after the Paralympics.  So whomever it is you are reading, are CLUELESS of the facts.  

Besides, like other meets, they try to rotate the WACs among different continents if they can.  So, even if the track were availalbe for 2027--which it will NOT BE-- IAAF might want to go with other cities.  

BTW, how old are you?? 

Edited July 27, 2022 by baron-pierreIV