Diamonds Aren't Forever
Well…well…well.
So, the IAAF has done it yet again. And by “It” I mean they have made moves that are seemingly counter to their stated goals.
(raise your hand if you’re surprised)
But let me not just add my opinion to the ring, as twitter and facebook are doing a great job of lambasting the World Athletics Organization.
I want to start with their own words.
“The top three most popular disciplines in the Diamond League are the 100m, long jump and high jump, followed by pole vault, the 200m and 400m, according to the latest research carried out by the Diamond League”
and by latest research they mean:
Representative online research carried out in China, France, South Africa and the USA; post-event surveys in Belgium, Great Britain and Switzerland and click-throughs on Diamond League social media videos during 2019.
And because we were all present for the IAAF v. Caster Semanya situation we know that they are actually playing quite fast and loose with the word “research” but that’s me getting ahead of myself.
The 100 meter dash, the long jump, and the high jump are the MOST popular events in the Diamond League?
So does this mean we now will get more than four outings? Does this mean we are no longer relegated to pre-program scheduling and empty stadiums?
How would we even know we’re popular: WHEN NO ONE SEES OUR EVENT!?!?
So…as much as I’m thrilled that my event has been flagged as a popular one I do have to call bullshit.
Oh wait…perhaps more people watched the twitter video clips of the top three jumpers AFTER the meet was hosted and THAT’s how the calculation as to its popularity was made??
Moving on…
The presence of the 200 alongside the 100 will cause some “congestion” during an Olympic year.
What kind of congestion?
Will there now be more than 8 or 9 lanes on the track?
Is this about having too many sprinters?
Is this about hotel rooms and roommates?
The warm up area?
Not enough starting blocks?
What does this even mean:
the 200m which DL organisers felt would be too congested alongside the 100m, particularly in an Olympic Games year.
We can waste our time asking these questions.
But the truth is, the answers we will get (if we get any) will be infuriating and probably offensive and frankly they won’t be answers at all.
The bigger problem is that we, the athletes, fell asleep at the wheel.
We allowed ourselves to be lulled into a false sense of comfort that this league would always exist in a way that would remain beneficial to us.
We allowed ourselves to believe that the people elected to run it (who aren’t elected by us directly anyway) would have our best interests in mind.
That every summer we would always be in Europe.
That we would always be able to make a living off of our sporting prowess.
What we forgot was that we weren’t entitled to any of that.
We forgot.
But THEY didn’t.
We forgot how valuable AND expendable we were.
We accepted the drip drip of undermining rule changes with eye roll emojis and a few irate tweets
We forgot that the Diamond League wasn’t the only track meet worth attending or competing in.
We laid in wait and let our collective power leach into the proverbial water supply and so is now nearly impossible to recover.
Sure, we whispered in dark hallways and crowded DMs about how we need to do something, we need to band together, we need to unionize.
And yet…
I’m aware of at least two meetings that were scheduled and held this past year that few bothered to attend.
But perhaps now, especially if one of the events you participate in have just been dropped that pit you feel in your stomach will be enough for you to ask the most important question of all:
What can I do?
Here, my opinion is probably unpopular.
Give up on the IAAF.
Or whatever they are calling themselves now.
When a person or an organization shows you who they are believe them.
BELIEVE THEM.
When they originally changed the diamond league final format conversations that took place between my manager at the time and the meet director of the final went something like this:
My manager: Let’s discuss appearance fees
Director: what appearance fees?
My manager: What do you mean WHAT appearance fees? My client is…[Insert medal count, performances, etc]
Director: Listen, I’m aware BUT she now HAS to do this meet. And because she HAS to do this now because of the new structure, I don’t HAVE to pay her to come. She now needs me, more than I need her.
That was in 2017.
And before that they changed how many competitions we got overall. And before that they changed how many jumps we got within a competition.
And I was asked by a close training partner of mine to boycott the final that year. And I really wanted to. But I didn’t feel I could walk away from that potential prize money purse. I didn’t believe that I would be okay having just filed for divorce and being unsure of how it would play out for me financially.
I allowed myself to be treated that way because the potential prize money was being dangled in front of me hypnotizing me into weighing what would be worse: guaranteed no money by staying home, or possibly winning some money by participating.
A gambling man (and the IAAF seems to be that man) would say the majority of us would pursue the possibility of winning some money rather than make a statement by staying home.
We are now set up to weigh things like the number of competitions available, the personalities of the meet directors, the likelihood we’ll be given a lane elsewhere, etc. Rather than asking questions like
“is this good business practice, or predatory?”
“does my participation here move me forward in my preparation in a way that cannot be done elsewhere?”
We aren’t thinking that, we’re thinking about points, and whether or not we’ll get an invite to the final, because that’s where the money is.
Or at least where they say it is.
And I’ve also come to understand that THEY don’t actually give AF about us in ways that would suggest these moves are about the sport itself.
They don’t care that we use these competitions to prepare for global championships, they don’t care that to be the type of performer they ARE willing to pay this has to be a full-time gig and they don’t care that we aren’t always going to be able recoup via prize money and appearance fees what it costs to be at the top.
Which led me to ask myself this question: Am I simply here for the money?
And I learned much to my surprise (and this is a quite an easy lesson to learn when you aren’t really earning any money) that my participation in these events wasn’t really about the money.
Not anymore.
For me, it was about the travel, the caliber of competition, the showcasing of my preparation, the camaraderie that organically develops after seeing the same people over and over year after year for well over a decade, meeting new people, speaking different languages…
The most important thing to me- the thing I valued the most was having the opportunity.
Ironically, this is inline with my last blog post…that even in our own Declaration of Independence it doesn’t say we have the right to happiness, but to the pursuit of it.
But what THEY’VE done…
What is most egregious about these actions is that THEY have abolished the right to the pursuit.
They’ve eliminated the opportunities.
And in another time, like when our country was young, that would have been enough to declare ourselves independent of the transgressor.
The road to the Olympic Games does not need to go through the IAAF or the World Athletics Organization.
We’ve been made to think it does, rule changes have been implemented and proposed to take it there but it’s possible to open a direct line of communication to the IOC.
Physics doesn’t give AF about whether your performance happens at a meet dubbed Diamond League, World Challenge, or IAAF Permit Meeting. We think it does, because we now have a point system tied to a world ranking system that essentially forces you to overlook other meet opportunities. Forces you to think that their meets are the only meets of value because they’ve added an arbitrary points system to it.
Recognize your value.
How easy would it be for some of us to use our platform and leverage to host meets here at home?
Hell, as much as we are rivals, Brittany Reese and I want to see each other win too. Last year we had dates and made plans to host our own jumps competitions so that we could be best prepared for the season. Had it not been for my plaguing injury you all would have been in for a special treat!
(this year Brit!)
So my advice is this:
Recognize your value while also recognizing that you aren’t valued that way by THEM. You can fight that fight, and try to persuade them of otherwise. But your energy is probably best used elsewhere.
Figure out other ways to replace your lost income, because you can. Being an athlete isn’t your only gift or talent or your only contribution to the world at large and if it is—it’s time to expand.
Back up your anger with action. Do something. Go to meetings when athletes are trying to unionize, get together and put on a meet here at home, it can be anything but you have to do something.
remember you love this sport. And anything you love is worth fighting for.
Because it turns out diamonds aren’t as forever as we thought.