“I just got back from the Prefontaine meeting and I’ve never seen such a down beat, down cast group of characters in all my years,” said Pfaff, a senior coach at the World Athletics Center in Arizona. “It’s definitely having an effect.”
“I’ve been fighting this fight for a long time so I’m not surprised but I am deeply saddened to see the discouragement on the faces parents and athletes I coach,” said Pfaff. “There is a lot of demotivated people in our sport right now.”
This reminds me of the part in Speed Trap when Charlie talked about how a lot of the Canadians were down in the dumps and it affected their performances after the news had come out about Ben.
Sad part is they pick and choose who’s careers to ruin. They ban a substance that was once legal, then go back an retest for the substance that was taken when it was legal then hit people with the ban hammer.
WADA is a joke.
I spent two weeks with Dan during UK Athletics pre-Olympic training in 2012 when I was supporting Lloyd Cowan in Southern California. Dan is a great guy and I have much respect for him. I disagree with his grim outlook on the sport, however. Clearly it is easy for me to do so as I am not immersed in it on a daily basis as he is.
T&F has always been an outlier sport in the court of US public opinion. Same as boblsled, luge, skeleton, biathlon, curling, judo, wrestling, the T&F throws, triple jump, steeple chase, Nordic Skiing, Canoe/Kayak…
Same goes for so many other Olympic disciplines who the general US public is only aware of by way of a highlight here or there based upon what the media decides will make it to prime time coverage hours. On that note, I can’t speak highly enough of the BBC regarding their coverage of the 2012 Olympics. I was living in England at the time and I was utterly blown away by the coverage.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the average American believes that the Winter Olympics is a contest in Figure Skating and and 1 or 2 Alpine Skiing events and the Summer Olympics is a contest in the 100meters and Beach volleyball.
As for the drug issue in T&F, if only the general public were aware of how widespread the use of something that is banned on some list is in any professional sport. Thus, for any sport’s athletes to be pigeonholed as villainous is nothing more than a reminder of the agenda of the puppet masters who decide what the media delivers to its ignorant viewership.
In my view, T&F isn’t going anywhere. The question is if/when it will gain the respect it deserves amongst the general viewership- the same as so many other Olympic disciplines.
Track and field is yet to unionize or professionalize themselves.
Why has this not happened? Good question.
Likely it’s because the top candidates who have the voice of their fellow athletes get hired by the very group of people who formerly exploited them. People like Edwin Moses and Sergey Bubka or Merlene Ottey were such possible candidates to head up a movement to get the athletes united as a professionalized sport. Instead at least 2 of these people now work for IOC or IAAF or their respective countries Olympic organizations.
Track is an awesome sport and many other sports require the athleticism that gets honed from having participated in the sport.
Another point of interest, that is rarely discussed, is the colossal size of the banned substance list. As I described in a previous post, the biased agendas of the media puppet masters determines what is and what is not presented to the ignorant viewing audience. In this case, any associations or stereotypes that the blind masses draw between ‘doping’ and whatever pops into their minds is most certainly linked to their naive belief that ‘doping’ is a synonym for anabolic/androgenic steroids.
When in reality, there are probably more than a few dozen over the counter products sold in any pharmacy that will render an athlete a positive test.
Thus, while all athletes are ultimately accountable for what they ingest, it is ludicrous that the general public might scoff at all the ‘dirty’ athletes in various Olympic sports for taking drugs that all of these self-proclaimed prosecutors take when their nose is running. Thus, according to the link below, the bulk of industrialized humanity takes more performance enhancing drugs during inclement weather than most Olympians.
http://www.usada.org/substances/prohibited-list/athlete-guide/
starbucks is the biggest PED peddler in the USA.
Indeed. It’s ridiculous, in past years when I worked with US national team candidates and phyios and United Kingdom national team athletes and physios I was made aware of the ludicrous volume of over the counter products that the athletes had to avoid. In this experience, the athletes were nearly paranoid whenever they went grocery shopping. It’s completely absurd.
This is not even close to being accurate. Methylhexanamine has been on the banned list since 2004. It was slightly reclassified in 2011 but still banned. He took a banned supplement, PERIOD, in 2008. He was caught with more modern testing methods able to test what he got away with in 2008.
WADA is a joke, but not in the way you’re implying:
“WADA heard of Russian doping in 2010, didn’t investigate until media reports”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/wada-heard-of-russian-doping-in-2010-didnt-investigate-until-media-reports/2016/06/02/9ec77acc-28e7-11e6-b989-4e5479715b54_story.html
https://wada-main-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/files/WADA_Prohibited_List_2004_EN.pdf
where is it??
It’s not named on the list under stimulants but falls under the “and other substances with similar chemical structure or similar pharmacological effect(s)”.
http://rjrnewsonline.com/sports/substance-found-in-athlete-is-methylhexanamine
"In 2007, it was removed from the IAAF’s list of banned substances as a stimulant but can be found in derivatives of amphetamines which are banned. "
good response.
must make it pretty complicated as an athlete needing to know all the names of all the substances with similar chemical structures…
I think Charlie wanted to avoid, prevent and ban comments on the site about the various politics in sport he was all too familiar with.
Why?
Well, for those of you who don’t already know he likely felt that if a discussion perpetrated about certain topics it would detract from the main point of this website.
The main point of this website has been to educate athletes and coaches and interested people about how to train successfully for speed and how to develop one’s personal speed for any sport.
The site was based on his own experiences both as an athlete and coach. He was successful at both.
Charlie wrote a book about his experiences. The book was about why he loved running and about why he loved coaching people to run fast. The book “Speed Trap” tells a story about a good part of his life leading up to 1988. He does not spend much time discussing post 1988.
IF we spend time discussing politics we are not advancing ourselves.
There are multiple interviews Charlie took part in post 1988 discussing the politics in Track and field which in large part lead to this website. Interestingly everything he discusses in Speed Trap and his interviews has played out almost verbatim.
For those of you that might prefer the Coles notes NOTHING has or will change until the athletes collectively decide they want different.
Let’s not waste more of our precious time here on earth debating something that no inquiry will change, no one person will change. This is not an ah ha moment. IT’s almost 30 years since 1989 when Canada thought something might change from their tax funded inquiry that resulted in careers ending and lives compromised.
So let’s move on and forward and celebrate the results of the sport, let’s talk about the training and let’s educate each other and help others understand how things need to be done to improve.
For those of you who are not training full time to run the 100 meters in the Olympics don’t despair. I’ve not once found the pursuit to run fast anything but fun and exhilarating and exciting.
Sprinting matters even if it’s not for anything else but pleasure to see how you are able to do given your own personal constraints.
Mrs. Coon, thank you for your words of wisdom. That being said, for the future of track and field I just don’t see athletes getting together to organize to better anything. The market and money just isn’t as big as other sports to incentivize athletes to do anything, and secondly, the type of athletes that track and field attracts are most likely individualists who would be less inclined to work together. College track and field (with a full scholarship) will be about as good as it will get for most who are good in this sport as the funding and organization is there up to that level and nothing more.
As far as training, I have come to conclude that the best possible training is already available via CFTS and there isn’t much more to improve on in terms of programming. No offense to anyone but it seems like people are either going around and around regurgitating training programs or they’re looking for some secret training program to take them to world class results.
What really matters is the following:
Training age
Number of years training
Race/Genetics
The baned subject
In closing, if I ever have kids and they want to play professional sports I’m directing them to baseball or basketball.
Mrs. Coon, thank you for your words of wisdom. That being said, for the future of track and field I just don’t see athletes getting together to organize to better anything. The market and money just isn’t as big as other sports to incentivize athletes to do anything, and secondly, the type of athletes that track and field attracts are most likely individualists who would be less inclined to work together. College track and field (with a full scholarship) will be about as good as it will get for most who are good in this sport as the funding and organization is there up to that level and nothing more.
As far as training, I have come to conclude that the best possible training is already available via CFTS and there isn’t much more to improve on in terms of programming. No offense to anyone but it seems like people are either going around and around regurgitating training programs or they’re looking for some secret training program to take them to world class results.
What really matters is the following:
Training age
Number of years training
Race/Genetics
The baned subject
In closing, if I ever have kids and they want to play professional sports I’m directing them to baseball or basketball.
[b]I appreciate your opinion regarding this matter.
Thank gosh for Track and Field. I owe big chunks of my awesome life to the opportunities provided to me since I was a 5 years old running track meets at my local grade school.
I am grateful for those Legion meets when both of my parents volunteered along with countless other individuals on my behalf and others who benefited too.
And the teachers like Nancy Huneau who stayed countless hours after school to coach me in the high jump.
http://www.charliefrancis.com/blogs/news/tagged/talent
Track is as basic as it comes for sports. By participating in track it will develop a persons speed, strength and flexibility. These physical attributes are key for all people in and out of sport at varied degrees.
Here are a few points I would like to make regarding your post.
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Organization comes from an idea if and when there is a need when something is not going correctly. How about we start asking all of the athletes what they think about their experiences in track and take it from there. Athletes are entitled to rights the same way every person is entitled to rights.
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For more than 30 years I have made a good living from my participation in sport and that is primarily because of my success and involvement with track. It’s possible I would have gone further still had I been in Europe where track and field has been organized differently.
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People can be taught the virtues of getting along, working together and shown very simply why organizational behavior can benefit everyone when something is not going well in a sport or community.
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Receiving an education in lieu of a person’s talents is an exciting opportunity that might not exist for people otherwise. It might not be the best thing for an athlete. A key reason the college system works effectively in the USA is because it’s an organized gathering of like-minded, talented people. If a person is able to gain an education in exchange for their participation regarding their talents this is fantastic.
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There is so much more in life than professional sports. Historically, professional sports were available to people whose opportunity to attend school or other professional areas were limited. I come across coaches, athletes and parents every day who have very little knowledge regarding how to train with method that gives them their best shot of maximizing their personal potential.
I do appreciate your response on this matter. There is so much more to think about regarding how we direct kids or people into sport. Education is at the root of empowerment. This site has sponsored this idea and not once taken money to advertise it’s ideas and this has been going on for almost 2 decades.[/b]
As someone without talent, but a lot of passion, I am thankful that there are people with mindset like yours as I read the “talent” thread. The world needs more people like that and less people that are so judgmental, or deterministic as you word it.