T&F News World Rankings 2009

[VaultNinja]

Yeah I thought you meant 3 Americans would be going to the European Champs, which would be sweet, but not possible for the US. Don't worry about it, its just a little confusion in translation.
But your right about us not having as many guys in the world rankings as we used to, not only because you need international competition to get better rankings, but because we are hurting on the men and womens side. Its getting harder to be a track and field athlete in the US, but you wouldn't know anything about that I'm guessing.
We all keep speaking of a "European Circuit" This is also something that seems a bit non existent these days since the meets are so scattered and unrelated. Can anyone define a legit European Circuit anymore? Because don't Golden League and even Grand Prix meets deviate outside of europe?

[VaultNinja]

The whole Legitimizing a mark over in Europe comment is a little off base though. Because no one over there has to travel thousands of miles to Legitimize theirs. They can just go down to local meet in Europe and then that mark is suddenly "Legit". No travel involved, no tired legs, time changes, sleeplessness, lost pole bags/luggage, hotel problems, car rental issues, weird plant box, small pits, metric runway marks, ect. Am I the only one who thinks that sounds unfair? Traveling takes its toll on your body, but if you never leave Europe to compete you'll never know this extremely, extremely, difficult obstacle.
If we go down to the local meet in the US and have a great mark suddenly that marks not "Legit" well sorry but f*** that. That is unfair and biased.

[VaultLove]

Sure, there is indeed. You must remember that Yevgeny Lukanyenko made his best jump at a smaller meeting in Poland and it was the same for Walker when he first cleared 6 meters. So, 6.01 and 6.00 came outside of Grand Prix. And you know, that is all that matters. If your guys are as you say, 5.90 athletes, they can do it anywhere if they are prepared to do so. However, if Walker is only jumping 5.80 he is more interesting for Euro Meetings.

We all keep speaking of a "European Circuit" This is also something that seems a bit non existent these days since the meets are so scattered and unrelated. Can anyone define a legit European Circuit anymore? Because don't Golden League and even Grand Prix meets deviate outside of europe?