by Stuart WeirThis is Stuart Weir’s third piece on the DNA Athletics and it is his assessment of the new program. Stuart liked some of the meet, and there were parts of the meet that caused him concern, as he is trying to understand how athletics seems to believe that sports and entertainment require compromise.
The fans were engaged in the meet, photo by Stuart Weir
The Hunt, photo by Stuart Weir
DNA Athletics an assessment
There were things about the DNA Athletics in Glasgow that I liked and there were things that did not work so well. I stress that my comments are on the event in Glasgow, more than about the DNA concept in general. I am still wrestling with the question of how to balance integrity of competition with entertaining spectators.
Well done
It is nice to see innovations.
The spectators engaged with it.
Problematic
Scott Lincoln won the shot with 20.13. Francisco Belo was fifth with 20.36, which just seems wrong – shades of the unpopular and unjust Diamond League final throw malarkey. To win the competition, an athlete has to win a head-to-head contest with an opponent three times. Yes, you could say that Belo produced one excellent throw and two poor ones in a competition where he needed three good (but not necessarily excellent) throws, but he still threw furthest and did not win..
Irish long-jumper, Ruby Millet, told me how she adjusted to a format of three one-to-one contests with just one jump each time: “I thought it was very exciting and a nice change from the usual format. I liked the dynamic of the whole competition. The fear of a foul is a nightmare. In my first round I could have done better. I felt so nervous and found it so hard to keep it together. I ended up jumping second best and coming third”.
In terms of strategy, she explained: “In the first round I gave it everything because I knew the Portuguese girl would jump a long way. I was cautious in the second round and I went for it in third round because I knew I had a big jump in me if I could hit the board. So you could say it was a bit of both – caution and really going for it”.
The problem for Ruby was that her first one-to-one was against the eventual winner, Evelise Veiga, and having lost it, she could not finish higher than third, which she did. A comparison of Millet and Rebecca Chapman is interesting: Millet jumped X, 6.09 and 6.40 while Chapman leapt to 6.14, 6.15 and 6.19. While a normal competition, would have rewarded the 6.40 and ignored the foul, the DNA format penalized the foul and rewarded Chapman’s consistency over Millet’s superior best distance.
Ruby Millet, photo by Stuart Weir
Could do better
The biggest problem for the event was not being able to attract a field of elite athletes. The loss of Laura Muir to injury was real bad luck and left the event with none of the GB Olympic team in action. Having a 16-year-old athlete competing is a great experience for the young athlete but having someone with no chance of winning their event does not help the event.
The lack of elite athletes contributed, one assumes, to the arena being about half-full.
DNA Athletics, photo by Stuart Weir
Conundrums
The finale of The Hunt where the team with most points from the first 11 events started the final medley relay a few seconds ahead of the second-place team and a long way ahead of the sixth-place team, is good in principle with all teams, in theory, having a chance of winning. The reality was that Spain were so far ahead, and with a strong team, were never going to be caught. As for Portugal, for example, a world record in each leg of the relay would not have brought them the win. It must have been a bit soul-destroying for some athletes to run a meaningless leg with no chance to catch anyone ahead of them.
The format of the high jump was intriguing. Again, each jumper has three one-to-one competitions with each athlete deciding the height he will attempt. This is a kind of sealed bit with each athlete not knowing the other’s choice in advance. The anti-climax here was that in the final round all six athletes failed to clear the height they chose to go for, leaving two athletes in joint first place and two in joint third and fifth.
