Is athletics being written off?
July 15th, 2008Most of my working life has been linked with the sport of athletics. I started writing about it in 1966; I edited, co-owned and was chief executive of a magazine called Athletics Today and now I publish Athletics International, the yearly bible of the sport. I suppose it is my favourite sport, just shading football.
Which is why I feel very sad these days. Look at the Olympic Trials in Birmingham at the weekend. When I was writing, a trials for the Olympics or the European Championships would attract a capacity crowd. Not so now. I reckon the Perry Barr stadium was about half full.
There are many reasons. We have few world class athletes these days; the sport has a negative image because of drug scandals and the trio in charge of the sport at the highest level in this country do not have the sport in their bones.
But a lot has to do with the media. For many years the AAA Championships (which is what I think they still were although they were billed as the Avia National Championships) used to be held on a Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. The 10,000 metres used to be staged on the Friday along with the 100 metres and the heats of the other events. Happy days.
Then they stretched over the three days but they were still staged on the Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Now, presumably because of television schedules, the last event finishes at around 8pm on the Sunday. Try fitting that into a public transport schedule.
But the chief problem with the media coverage of athletics these days lies not in TV but in the print media. I must admit I don’t read every paper, just the Guardian and the Observer but they seem to provide a microcosm of the problem with modern day athletics writing.
The Guardian yesterday provided excellent space for the trials. A double page spread inside and the front page lead. Seven stories, although all were written by one man whereas at the Test match there were three Guardian writers and most big events are covered by a reporter and colour writer. Yet a truly complex sport like athletics, and its major domestic meeting of the year and the entire Olympic cycle, which has loads of stories and angles all at the same time was covered by just Michael Phillips.
A hard worker that Mr Phillips. Most Guardian readers don?t know how hard he works. Because there is no Michael Phillips. The Guardian, one of our great national papers, employs a freelance who writes under an assumed name about one of our national sports. ?Michael Phillips? is Richard Lewis who writes under his own name for the Sunday Times and the Sunday Mirror. Apparently he also covers darts for the Daily Mail.
I have nothing against Richard Lewis. He?s very personable. My worry is that the Sunday Mirror, Sunday Times and Guardian all see fit to employ the same person to write about a sport I love. It?s up to the Sunday Mirror and Sunday Times to work out how he can work for them both and provide them each with fresh, unique copy. But the Guardian should be ashamed of themselves. They are overflowing with football and cricket writers and they have a cornucopia of columnists for the back page of the sports section (admittedly most of their columns are half-baked) but they are lazy enough to allow their readers who appreciate athletics to be hoodwinked. There?s nothing wrong with using a freelance to be a correspondent; freelances often know more about the sport they cover than staff writers. But this is different.
?Michael Phillips? started working for the Guardian because Duncan Mackay was unwell but when Mackay was ready to return the Guardian got rid of him. I must confess some self interest here. Duncan was once my deputy editor on Athletics Today and his copy is always interesting if a little drugs-obsessed. Duncan also gets stories. I may be wrong but I can?t remember ?Michael Phillips? breaking one story in the Guardian. Whether he does in other papers I don?t know.
I have contacted the Guardian?s readers? editor about this, but she has yet to reply.