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≡ INTEL REPORT ≡
Now this is pretty wild. Coming up on 1 September is the Fribourg Track Lab meet at St. Leonard University in Fribourg (SUI) is a meet which will use long-discussed, but never-implemented concepts in track & field:
● It’s a six-team event, with team scoring in a meet of only hour and 45 minutes, and eight events: men’s 200 m, men’s 400 m, women’s 800 m, women’s 100 m hurdles, men’s high jump, women’s vault, women’s long jump and men’s javelin.
● In the 200 m, 400 m and 100 m hurdles, the false-start limit of 0.1 seconds is revised to 0.0. If an athlete reacts faster than 0.1 – currently a false start – keep running.
● In the women’s vault, each athlete gets six jumps only, but the height is not the crossbar, but the actual highest vertical point cleared. The winner is the one with the highest actual height cleared.
● In the men’s long jump, the traditional take-off board – 20 cm or eight inches wide – is replaced with a 40 cm (15 3/4 inches) take-off “zone” designed to reduce or eliminate foul jumps.
Moreover, the distance achieved is not measured from the end of the take-off area, but the actual distance jumped from take-off. Each athlete gets four jumps.
● In the men’s javelin, after the first attempt, a throw is only measured if it is an improvement on an athlete’s best prior effort. Otherwise, it’s a foul.
These are ideas that have been argued over for years, but are now going to be tested in a live, competitive format. The concept is this:
“Fribourg Track Lab is an innovative and unique athletics meeting. It is not a standard athletics competition. It is a laboratory where the codes are shaken up but where the best athletes from around the world come together. The focus is not on performance but on three main areas.”
Those are teams, technology and innovations. There are some stars booked for the meet, including, but not limited to:
● Angelica Moser (SUI), European women’s vault gold medalist
● Alison dos Santos (BRA), 2022 World men’s 400 m hurdles champ
● Timothe Mumenthaler (SUI), European men’s 200 m champ
● Anderson Peters (GRN), two-time World javelin champ
● Nadine Visser (NED), two-time European Indoor 60 m hurdles champ
According to European Athletics, this is hardly a rogue experiment, but an outreach of new ideas, sanctioned by World Athletics:
“The initiative is led by LoRo-Sport Fribourg and TEAMMATE, a Swiss company active in innovative solutions in sports. It is being supported by the local authorities in Fribourg, Switzerland, and endorsed by World Athletics, European Athletics, and the Wanda Diamond League. The meeting will also be a World Athletics Continental Tour Silver Meeting.”
It will be televised by the European Broadcasting Union and streamed on the European Athletics and World Athletics platforms.
Is this the future … or track gone mad?
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