I’M BA-ACK! For the first time since my “retirement” in the March 2023 edition, here’s some editorialized babbling from me, wearing my Editor Emeritus hat.
The big action in the last month came in one of my favorite events, the discus, as platter-friendly Ramona, Oklahoma, produced a pair of men’s World Records and a women’s American Record and a women’s Collegiate Record.
Not everyone thought it was great stuff.
“Mykolas Alekna smashes his own World Record with a 75.56 throw in a wind-battered Ramona and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry,” Swedish commentator Mats Wennerholm told Reuters.
“It just becomes ridiculous in a competition boosted by gale-force winds. Weather doping should be added to the banned list.”
“It’s a different sport,” Staffan Jonsson, the coach of Sweden’s Olympic and world champion Daniel Ståhl echoed.
That the Swedes were at the forefront of criticism is rather amusing, given that Ricky Bruch (the ’72 bronze medalist, and a WR claimant) pioneered —at least as far as I know — the use of a facility with multiple rings, which allows for the competition to be held in the one that has the most advantageous conditions.
Bruch was said to have a friend who worked in the weather business in Copenhagen, just across the narrow Øresund Strait from Bruch’s home base in Malmö. When a promising storm headed across the water, he’d call Bruch, who would then on short notice grab a few friends and set up a meet.
Asked about the possibility of enacting weather-doping rules a WA rep told Reuters,“It would be impossible to choose a point at which to measure the wind given the width of the throwing area and the vast area (width and height) that throwing implements cover.”
There’s also the problem of figuring out just what constitutes an “illegal” wind in the discus. Unlike running and jumping with optimal winds being from directly behind, discus winds are best when coming in from the right quarter.
But that’s only if you’re a right-handed thrower; a lefty gets destroyed by a right-quarter wind (and vice versa). A direct tailwind would knock down all throws. Then there’s the matter of learning how to throw into a quartering window. Not everybody can master getting the leading edge of the disc riding the wind. ’Tis a puzzlement.
But technology marches on and the day might not be too far off when some form of Doppler radar could be taking all kinds of wind readings in the tunnel through which the discus travels.
The key to a system along that line would require a change in attitude by WA’s tech people. As it is now they’re concerned with measuring timing to the 100th (or 1000th for tie-breaking), with counting grains of sand.
Allow me to suggest that a bigger scale is what’s called for. I’m not in a position to suggest any numbers that would work, so I’ll just make things up for sake of explaining the concept. And I’m focusing on world-level throws.
So as not to interfere with throws, place 2 wind gauges on the sector line at the 55m (180ft) point, one on each side of the sector. Each of the gauges is mounted on a tower that’s 5m (16.5ft) tall. One of the gauges faces North/South, the other East/West.
The gauges are activated during the period from release of discus until landing. If at any point either of the gauges produces a reading higher than 5mps (10mph) the throw would not be record-eligible. But would count for placing purposes.
My point would be not to destroy a competition, but remove obvious outliers from record consideration.
Or we could, of course, just leave things as they have been since Greek statues came up with their marble Frisbees. ◻︎
