Meets with specific event focus?

dotcom 3 months ago

I was just considering the success of the 1500m events at the Porrit Classic this weekend and it got me thinking about what it is that other meetings around the country could learn from this example. It seems that all too often our major meetings are trying to increase entry numbers by offering more events, more grades and lower entry standards, where it would seem that by limiting the focus of the meets they may in fact be able to increase participation in the short term and then performance in the long term

One thing that would be useful would be for other GP meets to consider what has taken place over the past 6-8 years which has helped build the 1500m races at Porritt. Although I think some of the underlying cause of the success is unknown to the administrators, there are some factors which the Porritt committee may have had a direct impact on. If other meets could start to take some of the Porritt ideas and implement them into their own meets, around some key events, I think we may see some increase in entries and performance across the season.

What are some theories about how/why the 1500m events have been built up at Porritt and what can be done at some other major meets to help them do the same? And is this something that needs to be driven by the athletes, the meets or by ANZ co-ordination?

Examples of meets which are building some reputation around specific event performance:

Porritt Classic - 1500m races (Senior and School Grades in both genders)

Cooks Classic - Miles races (still predominantly Senior Men)

Capital Classic - 3000m (Senior and still lacks depth in Women's unless National Title is attached)
Potts Classic - 800m (Still focused on the Women mainly and hurt recently by lack of depth)

And in the past:

Inglewood - 10,000m (Unfortunately much of what the sport could have learned from their success has been lost)

Are there other meets that have become known for high specific event participation or perfromance?- dc

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Categories: track and field, elite

1 Comments

skillo 3 months ago

The New Year's athletic meeting in Ashburton on the old grass track that incorparated the Canterbury 3000m champs, along with an A Grade invitation race, and 10km road race was always a great success. There was also the kids meeting in the morning. Superb performances and really excellent sized fields across all events. Sad to say it no longer exixts.