5 Thoughts: 2019 USATF Championship

The action on the track rarely disappoints, we saw a World Record in the women’s 400m hurdles, close races across the board, repeat champs, and big-time upsets. However, it was the action off the track that will always color our perception of Des Moines based USATF championships… let’s jump right into my 5 takeaways, starting with the negatives.

Is It Time We End The Des Moines Experiment?

The Des Moines metro area has a population of 655,409 and is the 87th largest metro in the country… what other major sports are holding their championships in a city with such a small population? You won’t see it anywhere else, and while Eugene is definitely a smaller city — Portland is less than 2 hours away and has a metro of 2.4 million — it is the mecca of Track and Field… “the population of Eugene grows 5x on Track day”.

I get that Drake University is a historic Track & Field venue but the population just isn’t there to fill the venue for 4 straight days. The closest “large” city is Kansas City but it is still 3 hours away and isn’t exactly an afternoon drive to the track. Going forward — if we aren’t holding an event at Eugene — I would love to see USATF test out a larger city. There are great Track towns that could support it so much better — New York, LA area, Indianapolis, Atlanta, St. Louis, Houston, and Minneapolis/St. Paul all come to mind as better options with venues that would support the crowd that USATF should bring in. If we can pack the stadium and figure out a…