The little kid in me lives on. I like to ask, "Why?"
And perhaps the leading why question emerging out of this year's World Youth Trials concerns why there were so few competitors in so many events. There was, after all, a very nice potential trip to the Ukraine at stake in the results of the World Youth Trials. At 16 or 17 years old, I can only imagine the allure that competing in an international track meet in another country and wearing a USA uniform would have held for me.
In light of that, it's at least initially puzzling why the following events had the following numbers of competitors:
- Mens 3000 Meter Run - 3
- Womens 2000 Meter Steeplechase - 7
- Mens 2000 Meter Steeplechase - 6
- Mens Shot Put - 3
- Mens Javelin Throw - 7
- Mens Triple Jump - 6
- Womens Triple Jump - 6
- Womens Javelin Throw - 4
- Womens 1500 Meter Run - 6
- Mens 1500 Meter Run - 7
- Womens 3000 Meter Run - 1
Even a quick glance at these events reveals that almost all of the "short-handed" events were either distance events or throwing events.
In each of these events there were far more qualified athletes than participating athletes. In itself, that's not all that surprising. Edwardsville, Illinois, is a long trip for a lot of the athletes who would otherwise have met the entry qualifications. June 25 and 26 is a full month (or more) past the date of most state track and field meets. So, two of the three most basic requirements of getting to World Youth Trials were the funds to get there and a willingness to extend your track season by an entire month. Obviously, those can be limiting factors.
Each of these events had substantially more initial entries than competitors. Events like the womens 3000 meters still would not have been bursting at the seams, but we would have at least had more than one competitor on the track.
A number of reasons for the shortage of competitors suggest themselves. No doubt, waning interest in continuing the season and the perception of having no reasonable chance to make the team that travels to the World Youth Games played a substantial role in the attrition. A careful weighing of costs and benefits doubtless played somewhat of a role in a few cases. Mary Cain made some sort of initial entry, but bigger prospects emerged on her personal horizon.
Frankly, I'm stunned by the small number of throwers in the field. The weights of the womens implements used may have turned away a few who did not care to go back to competing with lighter implements. That concern is definitely understandable. The timing and positions of throwing are difficult enough to nail down without messing with the weights of the implements. For the men, however, the differences in weights of implements weren't quite as great. Perhaps summer football practice and camps pulled several potential throwers away. That explanation might hold weight for the low numbers of male entries, but not so much so for female entries.
It does seem to be true that the number of entries in throwing events at USATF club meets does seem to be dwarfed by the number of sprint entries (in particular). Perhaps throwers just don't have the level of interest, or maybe not the level of support, for continuing to compete into the summer that sprinters do. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what accounts for the situation we observed earlier this week.
Distance runners is a much easier case to explain. For distance runners, there are essentially two seasons in most states (three in a smaller number of states): cross country and outdoor. Frankly, that's enough racing for most distance runners, and especially most distance runners who've been seriously at it for more than just one or two years. A distance runner still competing at high-level meets into late June and July is starting to make his/her cross country coach just a little nervous. Not many high school cross country coaches push summer track meet participation with much enthusiasm.
Moreover, on balance, distance runners are not as attached to the club scene as sprinters. At least in part, this would seem to be due to the fact that distance runners already have two (or three) scholastic seasons wheres sprinters have only one (or two). Distance runners are thus in greater need of physical and psychological breaks from the rigors of racing than sprinters, hurdlers, and field event specialists are.
Add to that the observation that, for almost any location in the entire United States, high-intensity distance running becomes a lot less pleasant in the summer than it is in either spring or fall. Temperatures in excess of 90F simply do not have the kind of deleterious effect on other events that they do on distance events.
So, both from the perspective of the athlete and from the perspective of the coach, there are some serious disincentives for many distance runners.
That said, it's simply astounding that a national qualifying meet for the World Youth Games has one female competitor for the 3000 meters. Literally, dozens upon dozens of girls met the entry standards (10:48.50 for 3000 or 11:18.50 for 3200--I'm not sure if any altitude adjustments are made to those times for states like Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Utah). But maybe after state cross country, NXN/FL, possibly an indoor championship meet, state track and field, and a post-season outdoor meet or two, the allure of a trip half-way around the Northern Hemisphere just isn't that appealing to that many.