2019 World Athletics Championships, Doha

Tombo2001 wrote: »

One thing about this championships that I had never considered in advance is that is a venue that quite clearly a lot of East Africans can access easily.

Given their success in athletics, it seems a bit odd that the World Championsships has never taken place in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania etc - are there really no stadia there that could hold it?

Doha is probably the next best thing for these guys - the African crowd supporting the 10000 meters was really quite impressive.

They cant bribe ther way to holding it for a start

Well there's no doubt there's been some funny business around the decisions on where these major events take place, not least Doha and Oregon.

I'm not sure the East African fans in Doha were necessarily sports tourists. Possibly some were but I'd imagine the majority were migrant workers already in situ - and in fact many of them were given free tickets to boost attendances, according to some reports.

But yes, of course it would be wonderful to see a WC in Africa.

Tombo2001 wrote: »

One thing about this championships that I had never considered in advance is that is a venue that quite clearly a lot of East Africans can access easily.

Given their success in athletics, it seems a bit odd that the World Championsships has never taken place in Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania etc - are there really no stadia there that could hold it?

Doha is probably the next best thing for these guys - the African crowd supporting the 10000 meters was really quite impressive.

I would say we are probably in a better position to hosting it than any of the above mentioned and we are not at all in a position to host it. Although it has always surprised me how we have had notions of hosting or co hosting other big internationals tournaments that required investment and improved infrastructure too. The thing about the World or European T&F athletics championships, when it comes to hosting it only one stadium is required. Outside of that a course for the marathons and walks is required. 10 nights of competition and only 1 stadium needed! Obviously transport and other infrastructure would also need an injection but it's not the same as the need to build stadia. Thought the bid and plans for the RWC could have included the adaption of a stadium for such future purposes while they were at it. An opportunity to turn Morton into a wonderful stadium perhaps or a stadium in the midlands or South into a world class T&F venue. A Euros T&F bid surely should be manageable in the right hands. Geographically we a primed for sell out nights.

...Back to the East Africans. Great to see their support in Doha. Created a great atmosphere in the stadium, particularly on the night of the Men's 5,000 and Warholm's win.

On another note, really thought the commentary on Sean O'Rourke's show earlier was seriously relying on misborrowed info and lazy journalism. Damian Lawlor's contribution on the athletics was pants. Very unbalanced opinion, obviously didn't tune into it on the night Warholm won. They were fairly pants on the Rugby too mind!

robinph wrote: »

Being closer doesn't always mean easier to access.

London is certainly going to be one of the easier cities for people around the globe to get to. But the likes of Bejing, Moscow, Berlin are not going to be far behind.

Berlin was sell out every night. It's location was an absolute reason for this. Anywhere in Northern Europe is going to be pretty much the same based on the interest in athletics that the immediate surrounding nations would have. Heaps of Jamaican support there too.

deisedude wrote: »

No I didnt say that. I'm sure the newly rebranded Nike World Championships will be wonderful in Oregon



These are the same East Africans that are dieing building the stadiums for these sportwashing PR exercises so we overlook the fact Quatar is a horrible pathetic excuse for a country



Wasting money on stadia that will never be used again isnt exactly high on the African countries priorities lists as mad about the sport as they clearly are

Its been well documented that many migrant workers have died in the preparation for the Qatar world cup and that is a disgrace to FIFA and to all football fans that will support the event, as well as to any TV stations that promote it, which I have no doubt that RTE will do.

This athletics championship took place in a stadium that was built 40 years ago and renovated 14 years ago.

You present this is a statement of fact, the bolded piece.

Have you any evidence to support the view that these crowds did not travel for the event, and all live locally?

Not saying your wrong - just wondering how you know this.

Tks.

average_runner wrote: »

This might explain some part of the small numbers

"Qatar is embroiled in a bitter two-year dispute with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates which accuse Doha of backing Iran and radical Islamists"

The numbers were not small the last 4 nights. 2 nights over 40k and 2 over 30k. Keep in mind that the capacity for the stadium in Eugene in 2 years time will be 30k I believe.

average_runner wrote: »

Yeah but half the stadium was also closed off.

Eugene getting it was a bit dodge also.

All sports gone like that though

No, half the stadium wasn't closed off on those last 4 days. There's only an upper tier on 2 of the 4 sides of the track. On the homestraight half of it was closed off for media anyway, and on the backstraight the upper tier was blocked off, which isn't actually that big an area compared to lower tier due to the shape of it. They could have done with using it last night as there were people who couldn't get in as all seats were full, but I guess they didn't have the contingency plans in place to use it.

Bugsy2000 wrote: »

I had a meeting yesterday with a client of mine who is a director of a company based in Doha. He confirmed to me that all his staff received emails with offers of free tickets from event organisers. All who attended received, at a minimum, free entry and were fed for the day.

Smart move by the organisers. The image of big crowds is far more important than profit.

The championships obviously shouldn't have been in Doha to begin with. Everyone knows that. But the championships ended up being considerably better than I expected and they did a good job turning the event around. The fanzone area was excellent too.

Its interesting that when you Google "Doha attendances" loads of articles about the bad attendances in the first weekend come up but no articles about the very good turnouts on the last 4 nights.

We really do live in a very negative world. Something is only newsworthy if it's negative.

robinph wrote: »

A "full" stadium due to free tickets and food isn't the same as a sold out stadium by any stretch. As you say, it's better to have people there even if they haven't paid for an entry, but it's still rubbish that they had to resort to such things just to get bums on seats for the TV cameras and to create some atmosphere in the stadium.

I don't really care tbh. I care more about the athletes competing in front of a big crowd after slogging away in training for this event all year.

I seriously doubt everyone at that stadium was dined.

These championships had the potential to be an absolute disaster. They turned out to be way better than anyone expected. I don't really care about the methods used to get them in. They still had to show up and the atmosphere was very loud, so it's not like the people were disinterested.

As Warholm's coach said "if you go looking for problems, you will find more".

Qatar is a nation with bugger all interest in sport. The local Qataris make up just 10-15% of the population and have no real interest in sport. It's actually a myth that the big crowd on Thursday was solely down to Barshim.

The rest of the population is a melting pot of expats and migrant workers from other nations. They have zero reason to identify with Qatar. This is not like London where you have a load of union jack flag waving British people filling the stadium.

Qatar has 1.3 million people and is difficult to get to, particularly from neighbouring nations. Anybody who was expecting crowds like London clearly has very little understanding of demographics, culture and geography of Qatar.

Yes, the championships should not have gone there, but what's the point harping on about it. We have known for 5 years. This decision was made by people no longer involved.

I'm delighted and relieved that the championships significantly exceeded expectations. It's also probably the best stadium any athlete will ever run on during their careers. There was no wind. I hardly looked at a wind gauge all week as it was a non factor. Temperatures were controlled too. It was like an indoor 400m track. You won't find better conditions over 10 days anywhere else. Ironically this was because of the horrific conditions outside the stadium.

London was brilliant, but it's a myth it was a sell out. Plenty of empty seats. I was able to roam around the stadium and sit wherever I wanted when I wasn't working.

Doha had its negatives and its positives. It wasn't the PR disaster I feared. Now onwards to Tokyo and Eugene.

Tombo2001 wrote: »

People are very black and white about how they view things.

There's no room for in between.

At the moment - Doha is one of those places, that no matter what you say about it, people just come back with - humans rights abuses, oil money, fraud. They cant accept that good things can also happen there.

The world is not black and white. You can point to any country and ask about things that are done badly there - Direct Provision in Ireland for me means we are in little position to talk about what happens elsewhere. I've never seen that as an election here, at any point.

If this was an empty stadium in Helsinki or Stockholm people here wouldn't be giving out; after all we can empathise with other rich whites.

Qatar has a terrible record of human rights violations, but the UK has hardly covered itself in glory in that regard either. Their entire history is built off horrifying crimes against humanity.

People in glass houses...

Another thing about London is that the crowd were fairly clueless. They were happy to boo Gatlin but had no issue with any other drug cheats that were competing. Funny that. It was a pretty embarrassing statement of ignorance to be honest. I found the crowds in Berlin last year and Moscow in 2013 far more knowledgeable about athletics.

The atmosphere in Doha was far more diverse than London with East Africans and Indian communities living in Doha getting a rare chance to support their athletes in the flesh.

London was a better championships, and probably the best I've been to with the exception of Berlin last year, but it was hardly perfect.

average_runner wrote: »

In fairness Paula, Denise and others from within the sport were also basically booing Gatlin. They aren't clueless about the sport, idiots maybe.

Also the media caused the booing of Gatlin, you could say the media was clueless and bad journalists

Didn't we have a similar thing here? Cathal Lombard absolutely castigated in the press, while others that committed doping offences were treated more favourably....

walshb wrote: »

Few permutations

What race comes first. Is there heats in both etc....

I think a 1500/5000 or 5000/1500 is tougher on the body than a 10000/1500 or 1500/10000.

Anyway, I am not getting the hanging onto this "Oh, and she only ran a 10000 metres a few days previously," as if it was some "evidence" to add to the suspicion. Maybe, just maybe, she was at a slight advantage over the athletes in the 1500 that did not run the 10000 metres a few days earlier....

Either way, I know of nothing clear or scientific that says that her running the 10000 meters days before the 1500 somehow means that she couldn't run the 1500 meters to her true potential..

Imo Jacob Ingebritsen ruined his chances of medalling in the 1500m by running the 5000m a few days earlier.