Flashes of Panic

By inference through various messages, I’m learning a bit about this funny sort-of “scholarship” I’m on for the World Cross. We’re an interesting group—a Kenyan, a Spaniard, an American-based Ethiopian (at least, I think she’s Ethiopian—she could be an American who’s fluent in Amharic, I’ve never asked,) and someone with a .uk address who could be from anywhere, plus myself and another Brit who will also be working on the “official” web coverage.

It’s interesting to try to extrapolate some purpose behind this selection of people. I suspect the unknown .uk address does not actually belong to a British journalist; UK newspaper coverage of the sport is among the best in the world. Kenyan and Ethiopian publications don’t really have the resources to give their world-beating athletes the kind of coverage they deserve when they’re as far away as Japan; the IAAF actually has a parallel and very public program to subsidize travel for some developing-nation teams who would not otherwise be able to compete.

The Spaniard is a puzzle; it may be that they are coming for the same reason I am. Spain has, in recent years, had some quite good teams, able to catch the odd third-place finish (behind the Kenyans and Ethiopians, who are a class apart team-wise,) and so has the USA. I don’t read Spanish enough to know what kind of coverage they get in their national media, but I remember from my long week in Seville that Spanish papers don’t skimp on the sports section, and like the French L’Equipe and Italian Gazetto dello Sport, they have a sports-only daily—Marca or something like that, if I remember correctly.

Does the Spanish media publish copy proportional to their teams’ international success? Maybe not—and maybe that’s why the IAAF is bringing a Spanish journalist to Fukuoka.

The pathetic state of U.S. track coverage should be self-evident to most track fans, but if I have time (maybe on the plane) I’ll do a rundown of why the IAAF might be trying to subsidize it. It’s worth noting the company we’re in, though: either we should be proud that we’re seen as having teams that rank close to the Kenyans, Ethiopians, Spanish, et al… or we should be embarrassed that we’re giving them third-world coverage.

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