Roe, Roe, Roe your boat
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EUGENE, Ore. -- Bill Roe, acting chief executive of USA Track and Field, held a state-of-the-sport news conference today that covered a wide range of issues.
After acknowledging that the sport’s image has been battered by drug scandals, he said attendance at elite track meets was up ‘with one or two notable exceptions.’
One of them is the Adidas meet held annually at the Home Depot Center in Carson. This year the event drew only about 3,200 people.
‘I know that our meet organizers and our meet sponsors want to continue to have a meet,’ he said. ‘I also know that it’s been 95 degrees for the last five years on the day of that meet. I have baked personally in that stadium.
‘And I think Los Angelenos have a wide variety of things they can choose to do on the weekend. So it’s just a matter of attracting the right group. The excitement and newness of the facility and the event may have worn off, and now we need to take a different tack on bringing people in the gate.
‘And I know that they’ve talked about there’s perhaps a better facility in the L.A. area that they could use.’
A spokesman for AEG, which owns the Home Depot Center and has partnered with Adidas on the meet, declined to comment but said the company would issue a statement Wednesday.
Roe also said drug tests performed at the trials are due back from the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency within 30 hours of the last event, on Sunday. USATF must submit a list of nominated athletes to the U.S. Olympic Committee by next Tuesday.
The quick turnaround of the lab results, Roe said, was ‘so we make sure we don’t submit the name of an athlete who we’re later going to find out has a doping test positive. So we’re hopeful that we avoid that whole area.’
-- Helene Elliott