A Day of Change

Nathan Crumpton Photo

The Ivy League coaches held their annual fall meeting in New Haven, Conn., today and the result was the most sweeping change, in terms of the championships, in decades.

The changes, in many ways, reflect the vast improvement of the League in recent years as more and more Ivy athletes are able to compete at the national level. They also create a lineup of events that are now mirrored by each gender.

The indoor championships, effective in 2014, will see a dramatic shift as the coaches agreed to adhere to the NCAA event offerings. Gone are the 500-meter dash and 1,000-meter run for the men and the 4×800-meter relays for both genders. Added will be the men’s 200-meter dash and the women’s distance medley relay.

Also gone from the indoor championships will be the three-round format for sprints and hurdles, which should make the Saturday at Indoor Heps shorter. The first round has been rarely contested since the military academies left, making for long periods of inaction at the event. The indoor championships will clearly be more spectator friendly.

The three-round format will remain for the outdoor championships for now, which makes significantly more sense since weather can dramatically impact times. That said, those first rounds remain rarely contested and we’d hope that this would be revisited in the future.

The women’s 3,000-meter run has been eliminated at the outdoor championships beginning in 2014, which probably should have happened several years ago when the women’s steeplechase was introduced.

There was also news on the cross country front as the coaches decided to keep the meet at Princeton through 2013. Having the race on Saturday at Princeton was deemed preferable to a return to Van Cortlandt on Friday.

A quick look at the events that have been dropped:

INDOOR
Men’s 500-meter dash — Has been run every year since 1978; a 600-yard run had been in place 1948-78.
Men’s 1,000-meter run — Has been run every year since 1978; a 1,000-yard run had been in place 1948-78.
Men’s 4×800-meter relay — Has been run as either a 4×800 or two-mile relay since 1948.
Women’s 4×800-meter relay — Has been run as either a 4×800 or two-mile relay since 1981.

OUTDOOR
Women’s 3,000-meter run — Has been run every year since 1979; a two-mile run had been run 1977-78.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 9th, 2012 at 5:09 pm. It is filed under Athletes, Spotlight. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.