Heart Of The Matter

AW COLUMNIST TIM HUTCHINGS EXPLAINS WHY AN EVENT LIKE HIGHGATE WORKS SO WELL – AND WHY THE RECIPE FOR ATHLETICS SUCCESS LIES IN EMOTIONALLY ENGAGING THE PUBLIC

I WAS lucky enough to be at Highgate to witness the Night of the 10,000m PBs meeting and, like everyone else there, thought it was a fabulous event. Race director Ben Pochee deserves huge congratulations for coming up with a formula that is original and which literally has something for every taste.

At the heart of that complex and successful formula was something incredibly basic – racing. Not chasing times, not a metronomic procession, but pure racing (admittedly with pacers to establish the early tempo) and great multi-nationality, competitive contests.

As a result, the crowd was engaged and the people watching on the BBC stream were engaged – and that is at the very core of what needs to change in athletics if the sport is to meet the challenges of this new consumer age. Surely a “Sprint Fest” for the 100-400m community is screaming to be staged, the BMC look after the middledistances, but what about a “Jump & Throw Challenge”?

Fans and viewers have to be emotionally invested in what’s unfolding before them, otherwise they are going to switch over or, worse still, stop turning up to watch.

That principle applies to all sport and all viewing, but particularly for something like distance running, which can require a subtlety of taste. It’s hard to feel something for the unfolding event if you know little about the personalities taking part and, sadly, that is the case far too often.

What was great about Highgate was that we didn’t have 20 relatively anonymous Africans running around at the front, with the Brits and the rest of Europe trailing.