Coffee with Larry, our word for today is "Optics" or how to make our sport look amateur

This is Coffee with Larry for Monday, August 14, 2023.

Coffee With Larry is a daily, well almost, podcast from RBR on all things track and field. One of my CWL fans fave parts is when I go down my daily “rabbit hole”, it is kind of like being on a roller coaster, you know, the all-wood ones, creaking and shaking, while having taken a bit too much gummies of a non candy nature.

GOOD ON GRANDSLAM TRACK BUT LET’S LOOK BACK BACK ON TRACK’S BAD OLD DAYS

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Coffee with Larry, April 28, 2025: Drake Relays, Penn Relays, Xiamen Diamond League, Adizero Road to Records, London Marathon

Our topics today:

1. Thanks to Jack Fleming, BAA, on a kind note to our mutual friend, Michael Payton.
2. Here is a tribute on CWL I did for Michael Payton, 1956-2023, https://www.runblogrun.com/2023/08/coffee-with-larry-michael-payton-r-i-p-1956-2023.html
3. Michael Payton was very particular about optics and how things looked and guarded his brands and reputations.
4. In terms of optics, Bobby Kersee is sure not getting his own optics or how he is affecting sport or reps of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Athing Mu.
5. Totally support Coach Kersee on pulling Ms. Levrone and Ms. Mu out of Budapest, which is still up in air for Athing.

Bobby Kersee and Bob Brisco, co-founders of USATF LA Grand Prix, photo by Web MD

6. Six years of champs take a lot out. Mu and Levrone are global changes, so Kersee has a lot to manage.
7. Optics suck. Makes the sport look amateur, devalues World Champs, and scares the living hell out of potential sponsors.
8. Every time something like this happens, I get a call from a marketing pro, giving me a new body part (or removing one) for supporting athletics.
9. Tobi Amusan is NOT cleared for Budapest; still up to Athletics Integrity. It is a whereabouts testing violation.

Tobi Amusan takes the 100m hurdles, photo by Deji Ogeyingbo

10. Get off AIU’s case, they are doing their job, which is like shoveling horse manure on a very hot, humid day, and all of the flies are stinging you (they do).
11. Femke Bol looks fantastic, and part of the deal is one has to show up to the race.

Femke Bol, Wanda Diamond League
London Athletics Meet
July 23, 2023, London, England, U.K., photo by Kevin Morris

12. Song by Steve Forbert (little Stevie Orbit), a folk singer of the 1990s, a song called Cellophane City, ‘You can not win if you do not play
13. The women’s and men’s 100 meters will be insane!!!!!

Marie-Josée Ta Lou Wins the Women’s 100m with a time of 10.97 at the Wanda Diamond League meeting in Rome/Florence, Italy on 2 June 2023, photo by Matthew Quine for Diamond League AG

14. Leave for Budapest in 72 hours.
See you tomorrow, #CoffeewithLarry.

Author

Larry Eder
Larry Eder has had a 52-year involvement in the sport of athletics. Larry has experienced the sport as an athlete, coach, magazine publisher, and now, journalist and blogger. His first article, on Don Bowden, America's first sub-4 minute miler, was published in RW in 1983. Larry has published several magazines on athletics, from American Athletics to the U.S. version of Spikes magazine. He currently manages the content and marketing development of the RunningNetwork, The Shoe Addicts, and RunBlogRun. Of RunBlogRun, his daily pilgrimage with the sport, Larry says: "I have to admit, I love traveling to far away meets, writing about the sport I love, and the athletes I respect, for my readers at runblogrun.com, the most of anything I have ever done, except, maybe running itself." Also does some updates for BBC Sports at key events, which he truly enjoys. Theme song: Greg Allman, " I'm no Angel."
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