Over the weekend, the central Florida town of Clermont hosted the biennial North, Central American and Caribbean Masters Championships --a regional track meet organized by World Masters Athletics. An arm of Gustav blew athletes around a bit, but the biggest storm came online.
A collection of world-class M40 sprinters launched a petition drive decrying the National Training Center, where the four-day event was held, as a poor place to stage the USA Track and Field Masters national outdoor championships in July 2009.
Within two days of noting the petition, my blog had 32 comments on the issue. A sampling:
-"Great place to train, horrible place to put on anything other than a weekly summer all-comers meet."
-"No shade, poor warmup facilities, no local accommodations, no local transportation, limited spectator space. This pretty much makes up my mind. I'll head west to the National Senior Games in San Francisco. Just too bad the athletes under 50 do not have the same option."
-"Shade? Take umbrellas. Housing? Stay somewhere nearby and rent a car. No permanant bathrooms? Well at least they have bathrooms. Insects? What place doesn't have insects?"
-"One last major problem with Clermont that was not addressed, is there is no lighting. What will happen if there are delays for weather as in Charlotte (2006)? There is no way to run the meet into the night, so if the organizers wanted to avoid the heat of the day by morning and evening schedules this would not be feasible."
-"Events were over by mid-day for the most part and NOTHING TO DO unless you want to sit in your hotel room and watch reruns of 'Law And Order.' "
-"Something needs to be done or I can see a massive boycott of next year's nationals and something like 400 competitors."
To his credit, the national chairman of USATF Masters track and field bravely entered the scrum.
Gary Snyder of Boston, the chairman, wrote: "The comments and concerns regarding the 2009 USA Masters Outdoor Championships in Clermont, Fla., are welcome and encouraged. The USATF Masters Track and Field Executive Committee met in Spokane at this year's (nationals) and discussed Clermont. As you know, the Games Committee is responsible for the conduct of our championship meets and the chair of the committee, Jim Flanik is in Clermont along with our WMA representative, Rex Harvey. They will report to MTF committee on the Clermont experience."
The issue of where USATF holds its Masters outdoor nationals is a perennial one -- with some athletes balking at hot-weather venues and others clamoring for meets closer to home. But the sad reality is few cities bid for the meet.
Mark Cleary, a club coach and M45 runner, weighed in with a little history on the selection of Clermont, near Orlando:
"Southern California was the other (bidder)," Cleary recalled. "For those who were not at convention two years ago, California's bid was derailed by Mo Haneef who was at that time VP of Masters for the Southern California Association. . . . Mo had a problem with the fact that SoCal Track Club had made the bid for the meet without running the bid through the association. Mr. Haneef didn't understand that most outdoor national bids are not put forward by the local association, but rather by either sports commissions or track clubs. . . . Because we wanted to bid for the nationals in 2009 to be at Mt. SAC and Cal Poly Pomona (a facility less than a mile from Mt. SAC) we proceeded with SoCal Track Club as the bidder."
Haneef, in fact, argued against Cleary's bid for the 2009 nationals, and voting delegates decided it was too dicey to support a meet being held in a divided association. So they gave it to Clermont instead.
But Cleary writes: "I have offered Southern California as a backup plan (for 2009) and we may bid at this year's convention for 2011 if we are not selected as Plan B next year. . . . If they cannot fulfill their obligation to host the 2009 nationals -- I think we can have a very successful championships in Southern California."
It's unlikely that USA Track & Field will yank the meet from Clermont, since a contract has likely been signed by now. But the folks who gather at USATF's annual meeting in Reno this winter to select the 2011 championship site will likely cast a colder eye to the candidates.
Tags: Track Clermont
