After some uncertainty about whether or not I would be competing at the meet at all, I received my flight itinerary a little over two hours from the “wheels up” time so I was in hustle mode from the get-go. With my flight leaving from Baltimore as opposed to Washington National airport for some reason, I had a 45 mile drive in some thick Friday afternoon traffic before making it onto the plane.  Thanks to my tight schedule I found myself running from security to my gate (of course I first cut the security line to save some time) which is something I laugh at when I see other people doing. Guess I won’t be laughing anymore.

The flight to Kingston itself isn’t a long one really, but with the layover in Miami and then passport control in JA, I was exhausted by the time I got to eat dinner at almost midnight. Even so, I felt mostly rested on the day of the competition but the fact that we competed after 8PM didn’t help my cause. The meet itself was amazing though. It’s no mystery that track and field might as well be the national sport in JA and the crowd definitely reflected that fact. With probably no more than 25,000 people in the stands, it sounded as if there were 60,000 and the athletes definitely responded. For a meet in the first weekend of May there were some amazing performances across the board so as a fan of the sport, I had a great time! Ayanna being at the meet to compete in both the triple jump and long jump definitely helped my overall experience too though.

As far as the triple jump competition is concerned, like I hinted at above, we started a good bit behind schedule (about 40 minutes to be exact). On top of that, with all of the winds being headwinds, I’m not sure why we didn’t jump in the opposite direction. In any case, while I wish I had some video to share, I’ll just say that I ran through the board for the second time this season and jumped 16.80m into a 1.2m/s headwind on my first jump. The other jumps ended up being all over the place (all of them fouls either because I was over the board or ran out of the hop because things didn’t feel right) but the 16.80m felt easy and that’s a great thing. Getting the W is a good thing too and that jump was enough to do that. The distance could have/should have been a bit farther but my jump phase wasn’t as long and patient as it usually is but that’s an easy enough fix and a fix I’ll make at my next meet in Brazil.

This is a good starting point as the meets get more and more serious and competitive from here on out.

For what is considered the second most popular sport worldwide (2nd to football…as in FIFA football, of course) as far as sheer numbers of participants and fans are concerned, athletics has suffered from relatively poor fan reception particularly outside of Europe.  So since 1998 the main staple of the IAAF’s World Athletics Tour/Series, the Golden League, was an attempt to generate interest and improve the sport’s following as fans kept up with certain athletes attempting to win a $1 million jackpot. It was eventually recognized that from a business standpoint,  the Golden League with all its meets in Europe, wasn’t doing enough to improve the sport’s appeal where it needed the most help. On top of that, fans began to scratch their heads as it seemed like the top athletes in each event would duck and dodge one another; which doesn’t seem to happen in tennis for example, which is the non-team sport people seem comfortable comparing athletics to. I feel that, unlike athletics, the fact that there is generally more money in tennis allows Rafael Nadal to lose to Roger Federer or vice versa, and not suffer as much monetarily as far as future appearance fees and winnings are concerned; but that is an entirely different issue. But let’s not forget the fact that the majority of athletes were unhappy with the “League” since it seemed to feature the saaaame “big money” events year in and year out. In comes the Diamond League – Year One: 2010.

Now, since I’m not a several or even single time gold medalist of a global event (yet?) or world record holder, the chance of me becoming a Diamond League Ambassador like Blanka Vlasic, Sanya Richard, Usain Bolt or Tyson Gay to name a few, is roughly…zero. It is easy to recognize that the concept of the Diamond League is several times sweeter if you’re an ambassador getting paid by the IAAF for your participation than if you’re an athlete such as myself just looking to get invitations to the meets. The 9 ambassadors even have it better than those other truly top tier-athletes a la LaShawn Merritt or Allyson Felix who will just be competing as part of the Diamond Race. Is it unfair? Perhaps; especially since as the series is organized now, a hammer thrower could never be an ambassador since the event is excluded from the Diamond League! However, for athletics as a whole, I think having our biggest athletes committed to a certain number of events AND committed to compete against one another in the case of the Men’s 100m is a step in the right direction. It is an easy way to generate interest in the sport and in those particular meets where these athletes will be competing. On the matter of compensation for non-ambassadors, as far as I know the total amount to be paid to athletes has been increased a great deal over the Golden League (which is admittedly due in part to the fact that there will be more events contested at each meet) and the points leader in each event at the end of the season will be presented with a diamond worth, who knows how much; but it’s still something right? As a whole it seems as if the possibility for compensation for each athlete is greater than it was in years prior.

Another positive of the Diamond League is the fact that it includes meets outside of Europe. If the goal of the sport is to generate as many fans as possible, then bringing quality competitions right to those fans you’re attempting to sway has got to be the most efficient way to accomplish that task. I fully recognize that the majority of people in the stands will be there to see Yelena Isinbayeva or Kenenisa Bekele attempt world records rather than the triple jump but once fans are in the stands they no doubt become viewers of everything going on in the stadium since, I would hope, people don’t plan on buying a ticket to watch a single event and leave afterwords! At some point, you’ve just got to get people to watch the sport, live or otherwise in order to allow them to fall in love with it. That’s assuming that improving television broadcasts is an ongoing goal, as it should be.

In addition to the fact that it is a shame that the hammer throw isn’t included, I really hope that those meets that existed outside of the Golden League and allowed athletes to get high level competition, and another means of compensation for their months and months of intense training efforts, don’t suffer. After all, the percentage of athletes who will be competing at Diamond League meets is no doubt still relatively low.