USA Championships Thoughts

My thoughts on the USA Championships and its TV coverage...

Larry Rawson appeared to be on his best behavior. I noted few if any truly awful moments from him. Ditto for Carol Lewis.

Ato Boldon broke things down in replays of the 100 races like a good analyst does in any other sport: using the telestrator and stop-action to highlight good and bad execution and comparing them side by side. So why do they handcuff Dwight Stones, who could do the exact same thing in most if not all field events, by keeping him out of the booth and away from the necessary equipment?

Speaking of field events, it looks like no one knows where to position the cameras for maximum effect.

Another classy move for the 100 finals: plugging in to the PA system and using stadium announcer Scott Davis' introductions.

USATF got smart and allowed both Flotrack and RunnerSpace to webcast the portions of the meet that ESPN/NBC didn't want. There's a lot of criticism of these outfits (Flotrack in particular) for being nothing more than a bunch of poorly prepared college kids, to which some reply that they care a whole lot more than the Rawson/Lewis type of outfit. I think both are valid criticisms, and they remind me of the early days of political blogs. Yeah, those were amateurish, but they were run by passionate people who cared about more than just the bottom line. And now many of them, such as Talking Points Memo, now do a far better job on investigative journalism than The New York Times. This is the first major step in broadening video coverage of domestic track, and it will get better by leaps and bounds.