American Track & Field - fall 2015

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Vol. 22 No. 1 Fall 2015

INSIDE • Fall Shoe Review • Coaching 101 • Beijing Diaries Visit us on Facebook at American Track & Field or at www.american-trackandfield.com/atf/

Cover: Christian Taylor, 2015 World Championships PhotoRun.net

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

T

he journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, or so Lao Tzu, the Chinese philosopher, once said. American Track & Field magazine began in 1994, on the shoulders of American Athletics magazine, founded by my former partner, Christine Johnson, and me in 1989. In 2014, as some of you know, I was in the midst of purchasing the Running Network, and we did two issues of ATF. This is the first issue of 2015, and we’re bringing it back, once a month, until the end of the year, in digital form. We will print 1,000 copies each issue and email a digital version to 16,000 of our closest friends. You can be on that list. Just sign up at www.americantrackandfield.com.

Scan the QR code on this page for a one-hour presentation by coach Bob Larsen on training distance runners the smart way.

Watch for our daily updates on american-trackandfield.com, via the web, FB, or Twitter, and remember to sign up for RunBlogRun’s daily newsletter.

Enjoy the issue and please pass it around!

Thanks!

Alex Larsen

Larry

Vol. 22 No. 1

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American Track & Field

American Track & Field is custom published by FORTIUS Media Group, LLC. All rights and copyrights reside with FORTIUS Media Group, LLC. Publishing Director: Larry Eder. Design: Alex Larsen, acl3graphics@gmail.com. Proofreading: Marg Sumner, MargSumner@aol.com. Senior Writers: Roy Stevenson, Larry Eder, Cathal Dennehy, Stuart Weir, Cregg Weinmann. Editor Emeritus: James Dunaway. Media Sales: Adam Lawrence Johnson-Eder, 608.556.9164, adamlawrenceeder@gmail.com and Larry Eder, 608.239.3785, fortiusmedia@gmail.com. Counsel: Perry F. Goldlust, Esquire. FORTIUS Media Group, LLC, PO Box 6450, San Jose, CA 95150.

As with all fitness activities, FORTIUS Media Group, LLC suggests that before changing your current program, you consult your family physician.

American Track & Field (ISSN 1098-64640) is produced, custom published, and owned by FORTIUS Media Group, LLC, PO Box 6450, San Jose, CA 95150. Publisher assumes no liability for matter printed. Publisher assumes no liability or responsibility for content of paid advertising and reserves the right to reject paid advertising. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Publisher.

© Copyright 2015 by FORTIUS Media Group, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or stored in any form without written permission of the Publisher. American Track & Field is not related to or endorsed by any other entity or corporation with a similar name and is solely owned by FORTIUS Media Group, LLC.

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American Track & Field

tempt.

In the final round Nelson Evora of Portugal put it together and moved into the bronze medal position, pushing Craddock back to fourth place.

Then, it happened.

In that moment when perfect timing comes into play, Taylor did it all right. Each portion of his jump was better than the one before. He still had some room before the plasticine, then BOOM! We knew it was big, really big.

So did Taylor, although I’m not sure he recognized how far he’d gone.

Then it came up on the board: 18.21 meters! 59 feet, 9 inches!

Christian Taylor had just accomplished the second longest jump in history!

His world-leader also made him the American record holder, breaking Kenny Harrison’s gold-medal record of 18.09m, set at the ‘96 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Taylor waited for Pichardo to jump.

Pichardo, to his credit, responded with a long jump, 17.73m, but it wasn’t going to challenge Taylor.

This was Christian Taylor’s night.

Rana Reider, Taylor’s coach, came over and gave him an embrace. It was nice to see that. They’ve been close for a long time. Martyn Rooney, British 400m runner and Euro champion, told me recently that Taylor is the hardest workout performer he’d ever seen. He also noted that a big jump had been only a matter of time.

After I missed Taylor’s former PB of 18.06m in Lausanne, Taylor sent me a tweet that it was okay, as there would be longer jumps to come.

He was right.

18 meters, 21 centimeters!

Unbelievable.

And on the sixth jump!

5

Christian Taylor is a clutch jumper, among many other things. This guy can pull out a final effort that wins competitions. I forgot that fact when I was in Lausanne, France and let myself be distracted after Taylor leaped 18.02 meters on his fifth jump. On his sixth jump, Taylor leaped 18.06 meters! I learned my lesson.

So I was prepared in Beijing. I watched each jump of Pedro Pichardo and Christian Taylor.

What a magnificent night!

In August 1995 at the World Champs in Göteborg, Sweden, Jonathan Edwards put the triple jump into the stratosphere with his 18.29 meters, becoming the first man to jump over 60 feet! In that competition Edwards broke the world record—twice!

That was my first World Championships, and that world record was amazing. Edwards was both competitor and spectator. He wasn’t sure that it had happened. And then, when he did it again, both he and the crowd gasped.

It was truly something special.

The triple jump in Beijing will be remembered by many as a similar night.

Pichardo, he of the 18.08 meter leap, started off the final with 17.52 meters to get things going. Taylor opened with 16.85 meters.

In the second round Pichardo leaped 17.44 meters. Taylor countered with 17.49.

Then it got weird.

Pichardo increased his lead with a 17.60 meter effort. Taylor countered— with another 17.60 meter leap! They were tied.

In the next round the wily Cuban leaped 17.33 meters, and the wily American leaped 17.68 meters. Taking the lead for the first time.

In round 5, Taylor leaped 17.22 meters. Pichardo responded with 17.52.

Omar Craddock moved into third with his 17.37 meter leap on the fifth at-

PhotoRun.net

DAY 2

Always, always watch the last jump of Christian Taylor

by LarryEder

BEIJING DIARIES:

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American Track & Field

by RoyStevenson

PhotoRun.net

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COACHING 101 Warm Up & Cool Down for the Jumps

Because of the highly ballistic nature of the jumps, they require a solid warm-up before training and competition. Warming up readies jumpers’ muscles by increasing the force of their muscle contractions and speeding up the muscle contraction rate, providing that much-needed power and speed on the runway. Warming up also helps nervous athletes stabilize their adrenaline rush before competition.

PHASE ONE: Start the warm-up with 10–15 minutes of jogging to increase body temperature—slow and easy.

PHASE TWO: Immediately after jogging, jumpers should perform a series of dynamic stretching exercises to reduce muscle stiffness. Although they can start with static stretches, ballistic stretches through a wide range of motion work best because they are closer to the jumpers’ actual movements in competition. Research shows that static stretching exercises do not simulate rapid running movement and may actually cause a reduction in leg power.

PHASE THREE: The jumpers progress to 15–20 minutes of general and jump-specific drills. These drills put the finishing touches on the warm-up and prepare the athletes for jump training or competition.

Given the requirements for successful jumping (speed, strength, agility), the drills should include a few leg speed exercises that can easily be done with the sprinters.

Typical leg speed warm-up drills include a series of five 10x50-meter or five 10x100-meter “acceleration stridethroughs” where the jumpers focus on correct running technique and staying relaxed while maintaining a fast leg turnover. These should be done with rolling starts, where the jumpers gradually picks up the pace after slow jogging for the first 10 meters. Each stride-through should be a little faster than the previous one, with the final stride-through at about 95% of top speed. If your jumpers complain that these accelerations are fatiguing them for the main workout, adjust the number of reps downward so they will have plenty of energy left for their main workout.

These drills could also include stationary pop-ups, where the jumpers drive off the take-off leg, emphasizing knee lift and a tall body position. These can be over

30–50 meters, but no longer than this. Emphasize proper sprint mechanics, and if the jumpers are not mastering the drills at fast speeds, try them at a slower speed.

Once the jumpers can handle these fast drills, consider giving them a series of general practice drills. Here are a few examples: sideways walking or running (aka carioca), quick foot turnover in ladders, cone running for agility, short high knee lift drills (walking or running), heel kick drills, forward lunge walking, calf walking, plyometrics, calisthenics-like squat thrusts, and short uphill sprints, downhill sprints, etc.

You get the idea!

It’s not necessary to do all these drills in every wam-up. In fact, it would be impossible! So select a few drills for each warmup to keep it varied, interesting, and fun.

The number of repetitions of each drill will vary according to how long each one takes and its complexity. Generally you would expect your jumpers to do 5–10 repetitions of each drill before moving on to the next.

PHASE FOUR: Jump-specific drills Follow these drills with several practice runthroughs and jumps. Start with standing long jumps and proceed to short-approach drills using a 5-, 7-, or 9-step approach.

Skipping, hopping and bounding drills are excellent for jumpers. Single-leg hops also work well, but make sure they hop on both legs. Bounding drills are great. Triple jumpers should do alternate leg bounding.

After these drills, your jumpers areready for the main workout.

Before competition, the jumpers should do an abbreviated version of this warm-up. Then all they need to do is walk/jog to keep warm. The precompetition warm-up needs to be controlled and dampened so that it does not deplete the jumpers’ high-energy phosphates ATP and PC. A final note on the warm-up If the temperature is very low, a passive warm-up, where external heating agents like hot tubs, hot water bottles, and hot showers are applied, can be highly effective, preceding the outdoor warm-up.

The cool-down The cool-down is an often-neglected part of the workout. Yet every bit as important as the warm-up. It consists of an abbreviated warm-up; i.e., an easy 5–10-minute jog followed by easy, slow, static stretching.

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by CathalDennehy

Loren Seagrave

Director of Speed & Movement/IMG Academy the RBR Interview This is part 1 of a two-part series by Cathal Dennehy on Loren Seagrave. I was able to spend some time with Loren in Doha recently, doing what I love to do best with the former Badger coach (On, Wisconsin!): talk track.

Loren Seagrave: It all goes back to the biomechanics of the action, and the best biomechanics have evolved over time. A lot of the work done by Dr. Ralph Mann has chronicled that. There's a couple of fundamental things: Stride frequency is the more important of the two. Athletes also have to be strong, but the key point is that you’ve got a finite amount of time to fly through the air and it's an optimal number. It’s 123 milliseconds, the optimal air time. If you go greater than that, your stride length is longer but you’ve got more vertical, and if you go less than that, you can’t cover the distance that you need.

CD: How have you calculated that as the optimum?

LS: Looking at Dr. Mann’s work. His first presentation was done in 1983 and his model has evolved. The coaches who are producing some of the better sprinters in the world have evolved with that. That is what we see in the fastest of the fastest people, and it boils down to pure physics. The key point is the most important thing: that the optimal air time is 123 milliseconds, which means the way you get faster is with a big force into the ground in a shorter amount of time, and now we see sprinters out there putting their force into the ground

CD: Do you have any sense of where that next frontier of sprinting may be?

LS: You’ve got to be strong in the weight room.

Then, in such a short amount of time, you’ve got to translate [that into] more force. The Russians came up with the whole concept of jump training, plyometric training, but how do you make this more specific? The challenge is, if you do bounding, the ground time is too long, so that’s one of the things we’re playing with right now.

CD: We often hear sprint coaches emphasize the importance of increasing the power an athlete is putting into the ground, but what’s the best way to develop that power?

LS: First of all, in the weight room; you have to have good propulsive strength, which basically is power, and good stabilization strength. If you hit the ground and mush out and you don’t have the strength or the neuromuscular coordination to send the message down to stabilize the joints, then you’re in big trouble.

That’s one of the big problems we see with sprinters coming out of high school and college—they haven’t spent enough time developing these qualities of strength. The explosive strength is incorporating jump training in the weight room. And finally, you’re dealing with the reactive strength, reactive power: How do you get a huge force into the ground? After that, the next thing is: How do you get leaner? How do you develop specific muscle strength without developing hypertrophy and nonspecific muscles?

CD: Does that vary, in that you have to be more cautious in the weight room with some athletes to avoid too much hypertrophy?

American Track & Field

Cathal Dennehy: What do you see as the key fundamentals of good sprinting?

in less than 80 milliseconds, running at over five steps per second. Andre Cason, who I coached in 1983, was hitting those kind of numbers. What we’re seeing now in athletes I work with is they’re getting so good at it, we're looking for the next frontier.

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As one of the great experts ondeveloping speed and power, Loren Seagrave is a man with an enviable wealth of knowledge. Seagrave is currently director of speed and movement at the IMG Academy in Florida. He has previously coached several Olympic and world champions, along with training a host of the biggest NFL stars. Today, Seagrave counts Russian Darya Klishina, American Tianna Bartoletta, and Briton Jack Green among the many world-class athletes under his tutelage. RunBlogRun’s regular contributor Cathal Dennehy caught up with Seagrave recently and in part 1 of this two-part interview, he extracted some knowledge from the speed guru.

Continued on page 8

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Continued from page 7

LS: Yeah; some male athletes, they just look at a weight and get bigger. The example I use is Dwight Phillips. After 2008, when he didn’t make the Olympic team, he retired, but his former coach Paul Doyle talked him into giving it one more go and suggested he train with me. He was weighing about 194 lbs. He looked great, wasn’t that fat, but could have been playing strong safety here in the NFL. We systematically changed his diet and we also changed his weight training regimen. We got his upper body down. He had a lot of the unused muscle, which really isn’t applicable in the long jump, as well as the erroneous development of the vastus lateralis in the legs from doing too much front squatting. He then jumped 8.74m at a body weight of 173–174 lbs.

The British cyclist Bradley Wiggins is a perfect example. One of the reasons they’re so successful in Great Britain with their cyclists is their training is tremendously specific. I was at the European speed conference in Birmingham recently and one of the guys put up a picture of a guy’s upper body. He looked like he was anorexic. It was really sick. But then he flipped it around and showed the lower body and he had massive legs, and it was Bradley Wiggins. That’s what you need as a cyclist. You don't need any extra weight going up the hill.

When you're looking at the equation for vertical force development, you’re punished two times for every pound extra you’re carrying, because weight appears two times in the equation. For example, if I take a 10.96-second female sprinter and I put an extra five kilos on her, she ends up running 11.26 when you do the calculations and see how that disturbs the actual ground time because of the extra five kilos. Wouldn’t it be great if you could say: “If I take five kilos off, I’m going to run 10.96 from 11.26.” But the challenge is, there’s a lot of other things.

I remember reading a quote from British long jumper Lynn Davies back in the day, and they asked him, “If you could do something over again, what would it be?” He said, “I would lose 10 kilos.” That’s exactly what Dwight Phillips did and he went from not making the Olympic team one year to world champion and equal for the fifth best jumper in the world the next.

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American Track & Field

CD: In terms of developing a sprinter, especially a younger athlete, how much of their biomechanics do you want to tamper with and how much do you want to leave alone for fear of making things worse?

LS: My philosophy is: If it’s not broken, break it and then re-engineer it to a higher level. The critical thing that coaches have to recognize, particularly when working with younger athletes, is that you have to have basic levels of strength and power in order to run the basic technical model. If you don’t have that, then you have to be satisfied with a rough technical model. You need advanced levels of strength and power in order to be able to run the advanced technical model of sprinting.

And that’s the one mistake that people can make: You start putting athletes in the optimal positions that you would expect out of a world-class athlete.

What we try to do is teach the athletes how to reprogram their nervous system, first of all by getting the right conceptual technical model, so they can see in their mind’s [eye] what perfect sprinting looks like, then we help them re-program their nervous system in order to replicate that model. The challenge is, if you don’t have the advanced levels of strength and power—particularly as you’re striking the ground on a relatively extended knee, generating high negative foot speed and continuing to accelerate the thigh through the ground—you’re going to need good elastic strength in the hamstrings and stabilization strength in the quadriceps, and if not, you get a hamstring strain. That’s the one danger: progressing someone to the advanced level, which they can learn, but they don’t have the onboard equipment in order to execute.

CD: With a developing athlete, is there an age that’s too young to be hitting the weight room?

LS: I think that young athletes need to learn how to lift. At the IMG Academy in Florida, we’re a full-on prep boarding school. We have 14- and 15-year-old athletes in our program, and they're learning how to lift, but we’re not loading the weights on. It’s just the movements and body-weight circuits, jump training, those types of things. Then they have the basis on which to add weight as their structure, [and it] has greater integrity.

CD: In terms of plyometric training, how essential is that as part of a training program for a speed or power athlete?

LS: It’s absolutely essential. The challenge is, if you have some orthopedic challenges or you've never really learned how to do the movement, you’ve got to break it down and learn it. I think the European athletes, speaking as an overgeneralization, have a better plyometric and jump training background than most of the Americans coming out of high school or college. All of our Europeans, provided they don’t have a knee or back issue, do a great job bounding.

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YOUR 5 AGAINST THE COUNTRY.

Test your team’s fitness over 2-miles.

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presents

People make the shoes you run in. There are people who design them; people who develop them; people who assemble them; and people who sell them.

We’re the people who get an early look, take the opportunity to test, and then review the shoes that eventually make their way to the stores which sell them to you. We thank you for your trust, and we hope that our efforts are valuable to you. The process of developing the content for our shoe reviews involves a lot of running, meetings, running, phone calls, running, emails, running, research, running, travel, running, writing, and finally, running. If it seems as if there’s a theme about running, you can rest assured that first and foremost, running shoes are about running.

There are improvements in the materials we’re seeing in these shoes, as well as some new approaches, new patents, and the adoption of new practices. What results is a tremendous amount of parity among many of the brands. Because there are so many good shoes, it’s more important than ever to find the shoes which work best for you. I’m frequently asked, “Who makes the best running shoes?” I can honestly say that there are some shoes from each of the brands that work for me. That said, there are some that fit and work better than others, and just like you, I’m always looking for the shoes which work best for me. We’ve said it many times before, and it remains true: Use this guide as a starting point, then try to make your first stop a running specialty store to find the best running shoes for you.

—Cregg Weinmann, Running Shoe Reviewer for the Running Network, LLC

FORTIUS Media Group, LLC Partners American Track & Field www.american-trackandfield.com Athletes Only www.atf-athlete.com Athletics-Africa www.athletics-africa.com/s/ Austin Fit www.austinfitmagazine.com California Track & Running News www.caltrack.com Club Running (RRCA) www.rrca.org/publications/club-running Coaching Athletics www.coachingathleticsq.com Colorado Runner www.coloradorunnermag.com Footnotes (Long Island, NY) www.glirc.org Get Active! & Club Business International www.healthclubs.com Hawaii Sport www.hawaiisportmag.com Latinos Corriendo www.latinoscorriendo.com Michigan Runner www.michiganrunner.net Missouri Runner & Triathlete www.morunandtri.com New England Exchange Zone www.usatfne.org Race Packet DC www.racepacket.com RunMinnesota www.runmdra.org Running Journal & Racing South www.running.net RunOhio www.runohio.com Track & Field News www.trackandfieldnews.com US Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association www.USTFCCCA.org Winged Foot (NYC) www.nyac.org Winged M (Portland, OR) www.themac.com Youth Runner www.youthrunner.com www.ePodismo.com (Italy) www.ePodismo.com/USA www.HalfMarathon.net www.JumpingTheGun.com www.MarathonGuide.com www.PhysicalMag.com www.RunBlogRun.com www.issuu.com/RunDenmark www.RunJumpThrow.com www.RunningProductReviews.com www.SlowTwitch.com www.WomenTalkSports.com www.WorldWideRunning.com

W

elcome to our 2015 Fall Shoe Review, your guide to some of the best running shoes in the marketplace. It’s the result of a lot of hard work by our team, but remember that it’s only a start. Read through our reviews, then head to your local running store. Try on 6–7 different shoes, run in them, talk to the staff, and figure out which is the best shoe for you.

Local running stores are a huge part of the running culture. In the early days of the first running boom, the local running store was a place to hang out, check out products, find your next race, and get training tips. My store was Goettelmann’s Ryan’s Sports in California’s Silicon Valley.

Gary Goettlemann was—and still is at heart—a real runner, doing track, cross country, and marathons. Through runs with him, talking with him, reading from his stack of old magazines (full confession: I still have one of his Track & Field News issues from July 1974), I learned about our sport.

It was perhaps 1977 or ’78 when I first went to Gary’s store. Now a few decades later, Gary and his son Steve run the shop together. If you want to be patronized, please go to another running store. But if you want honest comments on what shoes could work for you, how to improve your training, and how running can positively impact your life, then by all means ask Gary or Steve.

Gary influenced me in many ways. One of my favorite memories was when I was trying to break 33 minutes for the 10K. I had tried and tried, and it just wasn’t happening. Gary looked at me and said, “Maybe it’s not to be.” Those words got me so wound up that I focused on the training I was missing and about a month later I broke 33 minutes for the first time.

When I returned to the store to show Gary, he smiled and said, “I knew you could do it.”

Read our reviews, then go ask some questions at your local running store. If you need help finding a great store in your area, email me at runblogrun@gmail.com with the subject line “running stores,” and I’ll help you find one.

All of the good running stores have characters—and we all need a few good characters in our lives.

Larry Eder Publishing Director FORTIUS Media Group, LLC

361º Sensation

HOKA ONE ONE Clifton 2

adidas Supernova Sequence Boost 8

NEW SHOE

RENOVATION

Fall 2015

Fall 2015

New Balance Vazee Pace

Mizuno Wave Enigma 5

Motion Stabilizing

Performance

Neutral

Fall 2015

Fall 2015

Fall 2015

Project Coordinator/Editor: Christine Johnson Reviewer: Cregg Weinmann Designer: Kristen Cerer Proofreader: Marg Sumner, Red Ink Editorial Services Shoe Photography: Daniel Saldaña, Cregg Weinmann Advertising Sales: FORTIUS Media Group, LLC Publishing Director: Larry Eder, 608.239.3785, fortiusmedia@gmail.com Ad Manager: Adam JohnsonEder, 608.556.9164, adamlawrenceeder@gmail.com Legal Counsel: Perry F. Goldust This 2015 Fall Shoe Review is produced independently by FORTIUS Media Group, LLC for its partner publications and websites. All shoes reviewed were tested by experienced, competitive runners who were matched to the biomechanical purpose of each shoe model.

Copyright © 2015 by FORTIUS Media Group, LLC. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be stored, copied, or reprinted without prior written permission of FORTIUS Media Group, LLC. FORTIUS Media Group, LLC and its partner publications and websites suggest that, as with all fitness activities, you meet with a healthcare professional before beginning or changing your fitness regimen.

2015 Fall Shoe Review — 1 — FORTIUS Media Group, LLC

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To read our complete 2015 Fall Shoe Review, visit www.runningproductreviews.com 361º Sensation

adidas Supernova Sequence Boost 8

NEW SHOE

Motion Stabilizing

Fall 2015

Fall 2015

Motion Stabilizing

$120

Saucony Omni 14

Motion Stabilizing

$130

HOKA ONE ONE Clifton 2

Motion Stabilizing

$130

adidas Boston Boost

Motion Stabilizing

Performance

$100

New Balance Vazee Pace

Performance Fall 2015

361º Spire

Performance

$110

ASICS Gel-Cumulus 17

Neutral

$140

Mizuno Wave Enigma 5

Neutral

Mizuno Wave Paradox 2

$100

Performance

$120

On CloudCruiser

Neutral

$135

Performance

$125

Nike Zoom Elite 8

$110

Brooks Ghost 8

$120

Motion Stabilizing

Altra Torin 2.0

Mizuno Sayonara 3

Fall 2015

$130

Motion Stabilizing

Under Armour Charged Bandit

RENOVATION

Performance

ASICS GT-1000 4

Performance

$115

Brooks Glycerin 13

$120

Pearl Izumi Road N3

Neutral

$150

Skechers GOrun Ultra Road

Neutral Fall 2015

Neutral

$150

Neutral

$150

Neutral

2015 Fall Shoe Review — 2 — FORTIUS Media Group, LLC

$130

Neutral

$115

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American Track & Field

by LarryEder

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BEIJING DIARIES: DAY 5 How brands combine content and context to make the brand a hero Part of the build-up to major events are the press events (pressers) that various brands provide around championships and Olympics. As adidas is the global sponsor of IAAF, they put together several events around the World Champs. I was fortunate to interview David Rudisha, Jessie Ennis-Hill, and Tori Bowie at the adidas presser for 10 minutes each, and we posted the audio from SoundCloud on RunBlogRun. There is an art to brands presenting their athletes and product to media. Do they oversell them and lose interest and credibility? Or, do they find the way to provide content and context to the media while also providing a positive experience with the brand?

In my mind, there have been several great examples over the years of how to use access to the athletes and the content and at the same time promote the brand.

The best ever was 1995, with Nike at the Göteborg, Sweden World Champs. While Reebok was the sponsor, it didn’t manage the opportunity well. Nike provided access to athletes for interviews each day, with content, product access, and interviews done by Steve Miller, then Nike’s VP of sports marketing. Managed by Keith Peters, the zen master of communications, the media came to expect a great performance each day with athletes, some early digital content, with the brand stories woven in, not shoved down our throats. 1996 was pretty good, but the Olympic venues are a challenge.

The content from Nike in 2000 allowed me to provide daily content to our then-growing web presence, even though I was stuck in the US with a busted eardrum.

The Sydney Olympic content from Nike had stories on each athlete, pictures of uniforms, and product info.

Again, Nike did it better than anyone else.

In 2004, adidas provided content, some time out, and access to their iconic athletes. Between adidas’ and Reebok’s daily press conferences and a few pressers with Nike, we had access to most of the brands.

Reebok in 2005 Helsinki and 2007 Osaka were two of the best managed. Access to athletes in a quiet, easyto-find center made a lot of sense. By this time, Nike was doing some fine interview opps, but much less than before and more oriented to the brand and product stories.

In 2008, Nike did some fun opps in Beijing around unique athletes and product. adidas provided access to some of its iconic athletes and a historical context to the brand’s commitment to the Olympic movement. The adidas launch in 2008 in Beijing was one of the best managed I have ever experienced.

Over the years, the Steve Jobs–Mark Parker collaborations over Nike running were pretty spectacular, part of which was Jobs and Parker’s chemistry. (Parker once noted he asked Jobs how to make Nike better, and the turtlenecked Apple-meister observed, “Stop making crappy shoes.”)

For several years, Nike did spectacular events

around the Nike running application, Lunar product, and the biggest was the 2012 Olympic product launch. Probably 400 media and a well-run, focused event promoted the complete line Nike had built around Olympic events.

It’s a challenge to put all those pieces together in the best of times, but I’ve seen several do this well with very modest programs. ASICS in 2012 had a nice afternoon access to athletes and a chance to interview its new president, Kevin Wulff. Again, access to their athletes, a brand story, and some access to executives to speak about the brand and sport are what media want. Providing them the opportunity does not have to have fanfare but it must have substance.

This year at the World Champs, adidas did three media events with a unique approach. I went on one where we accompanied Ennis-Hill, Rudisha and Bowie as they walked us through the call areas under the stadium, giving us a chance to see the track and the behind-thescenes operations of the Beijing Bird’s Nest. It was welldone and fun. It also wove in the brand story.

My interviews with Rudisha, Bowie and EnnisHill were short and focused. I enjoyed the access and posted all three, and you can hear them via the QR code below.

Sometimes, the most unrehearsed situations are the best. I remember a 2011 event in Daegu, South Korea where Trey Hardee had taken gold and Ashton Eaton the silver. Nike did a quick press event and the communication between Eaton and Hardee was amazing. The honesty about their prespective performances was telling and provided a fine moment. Likewise, in 2007, in Osaka, Carolina Kluft, the magnificent heptathlete, did a pressser after her win that was both telling and startling in its honesty. Moments like that come few and far between.

For nearly two decades, Nike introduced many products with huge fanfare. From Air 180, to Nike Free, to Nike running app with late Steve Jobs, Nike did the best events in running. They were part show and lots of glitz, and the excitement for the media that they were among the few who got to see new product and wear it first.

In 2000, David Mingey had a public relations disaster to deal with regarding Marion Jones and CJ Hunter.

“Minge,” as those who know the guy call him, did not become unglued, but handled it well in public and tried to control what was quickly becoming a fiasco. I believe, in retrospect, it may have been, along with Keith Peters’ understanding of where content and context could support the Nike brand, some of the best moments in support of the Swoosh.

Both Peters and Minge added integrity to their brands, and after leaving the company they have gone on to do great things. Providing brand integrity requires, in my mind, that the person orchestrating the operation have integrity.

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PhotoRun.net

PRESS CONFERENCES

by StuartWeir

BEIJING DIARIES: A job hazard or help?

15

American Track & Field

In my job I go to a lot of athletics press conferences. There are event press conferences to supply the event propaganda, I mean, information. There are team press conferences before a major championship. There are medalists’ press conferences after each race or event. At times it’s like a game with the speakers trying to keep to the script and the media trying to prise an indiscreet answer out of them.

There are serious and poignant moments like when Tunisia’s Habiba Ghribi took the opportunity at the medalists’ press conference to dedicate her 3000 meter steeplechase silver medal at the 2011 World Championships to those who had lost their lives in the Arab Spring fight for freedom. Suddenly, the fact that she’d won a silver medal and not a gold hardly mattered.

Less edifying was the 2015 World Championships men’s marathon medalists’ conference. Asked how he had felt in the final few kilometers, the winner, Ghirmay Ghebreslassie of Eritrea, launched into a 3-minute, 44-second statement about his agent, his manager, his coach, his federation, his country, his school, and his neighbor’s dog—OK, he didn't mention the dog—before asking the questioner to repeat the question!

The two most pointless questions I ever heard were at the 2015 European Team Championships in Cheboksary, Russia. Question to Dinah Asher-Smith: “How much did you know about Russia before you came to Russia? For example, did you expect to see bears in the streets?” Asher-Smith, with a did-he-actually-askthat look, replied that she had not expected to see bears.

Question from a fat, bearded Russian journalist to Polish shot putter Tomasz Majewski: “When I was younger I was self-conscious because I was fat so I grew a beard. Why do you have a beard?” Question ignored.

I loved, too, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce’s answer to this question: “Are you recognized when you go out in Jamaica?” She replied, "Oh, yes. People stop me ... and ask, ‘How is Usain?’”

Questioners also often try to sneak in a question about drugs or other hot topic of the day. I really felt for the Kenyan winner of the women’s steeplechase Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkemoi, who was asked about two banned Kenyans. Giving all her attention to preparing for and running her race, she did not even know it had happened. In any case, what is she supposed to say?

The most common question at a medalists’ conference is: “How do you feel about winning or being champion?” It’s an inevitable question, I suppose, but hard to find a memorable or meaningful reply. How can an athlete be expected to be articulate when overcome with emotion?

For all their shortcomings, I enjoy press conferences. I haven’t been to one for, well, at least an hour and I’m getting withdrawal symptoms.

MIKE RUT T – HOK A ONE ONE ELITE 800 METER RUNNER

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CLIF

THIS IS NOT A SHOE.

TON

2

T H I S I S A N I N V I T A T I O N . YO U R

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SHOWS THESE STREETS WHO’S BOSS. LET’S GO.