Track and field athletes can, and do, make money

In American track and field circles, there has for years endured a chronic amount of bitching about whether Olympic-caliber athletes can make a decent — if not better — living at the sport.

Much of the criticism, inevitably, gets directed at the national federation, USA Track & Field. And by extension, its chief executive, Max Siegel.

Preliminary figures made public Thursday shed considerable light on such criticism. The top-line, with a full breakdown below:

Combined, U.S. track and field athletes made at least $14 million in 2016. And 28 athletes made more than $100,000 apiece.

Importantly, those figures do not include shoe deals or appearance fees, the sport’s traditional money pots.

Of course, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion, even if all the whiners and complainers out there remain mired in yesteryear’s tiresome cycle of blame that typically seeks to advance personal agendas but, in truth, gets nobody anywhere. To emphasize: all constructive criticism, from anyone about anything, is always welcome. But: where are solutions? As Dwight Philips, chair of the USATF athletes’ advisory committee, put it in a rueful Nov. 23 post to his blog about missteps in professionalizing the sport, “We are constantly fighting internal battles that have prevented us from advancing this sport.”

Siegel, in line with his mandate, has been offering solutions since he took over five years ago.

Backing up: far too often, what Siegel and USATF do, and what they should be doing, is thoroughly misunderstood.

USATF is not in the business of charity. Nor does it underwrite “I work hard and I deserve to be helped” cases. If you have some talent, and lots and lots of people do, but at the same time you aren’t likely to compete for an Olympic medal, USATF is not likely to help. Nor should it. The federation has x in resource — x way up since 2012 because of Siegel along with chief operating officer Renee Washington and others — but is confronted with a, b, c all the way up to z and beyond in requests.

Entitled is one thing. Entitlement is, you know, another.

Start with the basics:

USATF’s primary mission is to win medals. This is also what the U.S. Olympic Committee demands. Upshot: The U.S. track and field team is winning medals. Bunches — starting with 32 in August at the Rio 2016 Games, the most at a non-boycotted Games since 1932.

U.S. women (Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali, Kristi Catlin) went 1-2-3 for a first-ever sweep in the 100 hurdles. Americans Tianna Bartoletta and Brittney Reese went 1-2 in the women’s long jump, Ryan Crouser and Joe Kovacs 1-2 in the men’s shot put. Matthew Centrowitz Jr. won the men’s 1500, the first American gold in the event since 1908. Paul Chelimo took silver in the 5,000, the first U.S. medal in the event since 1964.

Dalilah Muhammad won the first-ever gold by an American in the women’s 400m hurdles. Michelle Carter won the first-ever gold by an American in the women's shot put. Jenny Simpson's bronze was the first American medal in the women's 1500. Emma Coburn's bronze was the first American medal in the women's steeplechase.

Ashton Eaton reprised his 2012 London gold in the decathlon. So did Christian Taylor in the men’s triple jump. Allyson Felix left Rio with three more medals, bumping her up to nine over her Olympic career; in Rio, she became the most decorated woman in American track and field history.

At the 2016 IAAF world indoors in March in Portland, Oregon, the U.S. team won 23 medals. That tied a record.

At the 2016 IAAF world juniors in July in Bydgoszcz, Poland, the U.S. team won 21 medals. That tied a record. Of those 21, 11 were a meet-best gold. Kenya won five golds, nine overall; Ethiopia won four golds, 10 overall.

At the other end of the age spectrum: the 240-member Team USA won 168 medals at the recently concluded World Masters championships in Perth, Australia. California’s Irene Obera put on a Michael Phelps-like performance in the women’s-80 category. She won eight golds: 100, 200, 80-meter hurdles, 200-meter hurdles, long jump, heptathlon and the 4x100 and 4x400 relays. For good measure, she also won silver in the triple jump and bronze in the high jump. She turns 83 on Dec. 7.

Bottom line, part one: USATF is doing what is mandated to do.

Part two: the facts clearly demonstrate that America’s elite track and field athletes can do quite well financially.

In 2016, according to preliminary figures compiled by USATF and reported Thursday by Siegel in his state-of-the-sport speech, speaking at the federation’s annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., U.S. track and field athletes earned more than $14 million in publicly traceable sources of support.

To reiterate, because this is essential to understand in computing what a top-rank athlete really might have made in total: that figure does not — repeat, not — include personal shoe and sponsorship contracts, appearance fees and other private income.

So: not counting shoe deals and appearance fees, the precise figure in publicly traceable sources of support amounted to $14,053,538.

Breaking that down:

1. Athletes received nearly $7 million in cash from USATF program sources. The exact number: $6,998,604.

Here’s where that figure comes from:

— $2,610,050 in prize money at USATF championship events. This means the U.S. Olympic Trials, the U.S. indoor championships as well as road racing and cross-country championships.

— $1,855,004 from what’s called the “USATF elite athlete revenue distribution plan.” This is the program that gave $10,000 to every athlete taking part in the Rio 2016 Games along with money for medals.

— $1,923,250 in cash stipends. This comes through what’s known as the USATF Tier program.

— $610,300 in travel payments toward the indoors and the Trials.

If you are counting only cash generated through these programs, in 2016 one athlete got more than $100,000. Another 35, representing all event groups, were over $38,000. Further, 85 were over $25,000.

A broader breakdown of athlete income -- that is, cash and more -- can be found below.

2. Athletes got at least $4,445,004 from other publicly available revenue streams.

That means:

— published international prize money earned on the road and track

— Grants from the U.S. Olympic Committee’s “Operation Gold” program

— USATF Foundation grants

3. USATF support programs provided $2,609,930.

This includes U.S. Olympic Training Center programs, health insurance, sport performance workshops and other Tier programs.

For those not inclined to believe such support programs ought to count -- ask any of the Rio 2016 athletes, in particular the distance and middle distance runners, about the contributions of Robert Chapman, the USATF associate director of sports science and medicine. Siegel singled him out, and appropriately, in Thursday's address. The seven Rio medals won by Americans at distances 800 meters and up? Exceeded only in 1984 (nine), 1912 (eight), 1904 (eight).

Math: $6,998,604 + $4,445,004 + $2,609,930 = $14,053,538.

What did this mean for individual athletes? Here is that broader breakdown promised above:

In 2016, 28 athletes, 27 of them on the 2016 Rio team, made more than $100,000.

Siegel did not name names in his talk. But it's logical enough to reason out the exception: Keni Harrison, who would go on in July to set a world record 12.2 in the women’s 100 hurdles after finishing sixth in June at the Trials in Eugene.

In 2016, 111 athletes earned more than $38,000.

In 2016, 179 athletes were over $25,000.

Bottom line — 28 athletes made over $100,000, and for the third time, because when it comes to finances in track and field, this can’t be repeated enough: that does not include shoe deals or appearance fees, where traditionally the real money in the sport can be found.

“These numbers are preliminary but they are a start in an important process,” Siegel said Thursday.

This, too:

USATF membership now stands at 130,000. That makes for a 30 percent increase in paid memberships since 2011.

The national office, based in Indianapolis, is now paying for competition officials’ secondary insurance, including at non-USATF events. In English: this means professional liability insurance for those officials.

In 2016, USATF added four new sponsors: Chobani, Garden of Life, KT and NormaTec.

That means that since 2013 the federation has added 12 new business partners, Siegel saying Thursday, "I believe we’ve just scratched the surface as to where we can go. We have grown equity in the sports marketplace.”

Also Thursday, NBC announced what it called a "historic eight-year partnership" with USATF, 2017 through 2024, to televise at least 18 hours of track and field each year, eight on NBC itself.

If you know how to decode news releases, it's not just intriguing but essential to note this quote from NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel, citing Siegel by name instead of just the federation generally: “We are pleased to continue our relationship on a long-term basis with USA Track & Field under of the leadership of Max Siegel.”

In answer to the ready critics:

1. Why is this deal hugely significant? Financial details were not immediately available. At the same time, understand that most Olympic sports pay instead of get paid. That is, U.S. Olympic sports federations must pay network production costs in exchange for air time -- just to be seen. Associated Press reported that the new NBC deal will greatly reduce USATF's costs, which have reached nearly $2 million annually.

2. Of course there are more than eight hours of NFL games on a single autumn Sunday. People, this is not the 1980s. Football is now king in so many ways. Track and field is taking steps. With Siegel, and the support of the USATF board, led now by Steve Miller, it is getting there -- again, in steps, not long jump-style leaps. To expect anything else is wholly unrealistic.

The federation is also, Siegel said Thursday, in talks for new agreements with, among others, the Penn Relays, National Black Marathoners Assn. and Running USA.

Further, in 2017 USATF will join up with the American Cancer Society in a bid to raise funds for cancer research and USATF Youth programs.

Next week is due to bring the formal announcement of a new partnership with YWCA USA to make the USATF “Run Jump Throw” program, in concert with Hershey, a part of what YWCA does around the nation.

“Partnership,” Siegel said, “is the key to the growth of any program and any organization.”

It’s a free country. Believe whatever you want. But — facts, please, especially when it comes to what’s really going on at USATF and in American track and field circles. There’s a lot of positive out there, for elite athletes in particular, and there's a lot of leadership, too, and in that context Vin Lananna was on Thursday elected USATF president, replacing Stephanie Hightower, who is now on the IAAF council. Both elements deserve to be acknowledged — as we all aim now toward Tokyo 2020 and the 2021 IAAF outdoor world championships, back in Eugene, the first-ever such IAAF worlds to be staged in these United States.

Race-based character assassination, and more

Anyone who has spent a number of years in journalism recognizes a story written with the full intent of being submitted at the end of the year, maybe as part of a package, to prize juries.

The question is whether the Washington Post story published Friday about USA Track & Field also gets recognized for what it further is: a story laced with implicit bias about the only federation in the U.S. Olympic scene with significant African-American leadership as well as one driven by source interviews animated by the same stupid, tiresome, fourth grade-style playground politics that have in years past all but destroyed USATF.

This story comes after the U.S. track team won 32 medals at the Rio Games, passing the long-targeted 30 mark. Max Siegel is the USATF chief executive. Did either of his two predecessors, Craig Masback or Doug Logan, both mentioned in the Post story, lead a team that got to 30? No. Is that mentioned? No.

Last month, the U.S. Olympic Committee acknowledged that it and the sports it leads are way behind the curve in the placement of women and minorities in key coaching and leadership positions. The exception: USATF. Siegel is African-American. So, too, chief operating officer Renee Washington. So, too, president Stephanie Hightower. Of the 15-member USATF board of directors, 10 are people of color.

Is any of that mentioned? No.

So what is? That Siegel flies business or first-class, or even on a private jet?

People, that’s what business executives do. Why is the black guy getting singled out for that?

Last October, Siegel opened his email to find not one but two vile emails loaded with threats and repeated use of the n-word. Is any of that mentioned? No.

If the point of the story is that Siegel is flying up front while American athletes are sitting in the back — uh, wait. Someone call USA Swimming and ask if the entire team — the entire team — flew to Rio on Mark Cuban’s private jet.

The journalistic jargon for the kind of story the Post published about USATF, and in particular Siegel, is a “takedown.”

The point is not just to try to win prizes but to embarrass Siegel in particular and, as well, because it’s the Washington Post, to get a story in front of Congress, which has oversight over the U.S. Olympic scene.

The problem with this particular effort is that there is, as the famous saying about Oakland goes, no there there.

And it is riddled with fairness issues.

Nowhere in the lengthy story — which runs to some 4,000 words, or roughly 100 copy inches — will one find the words “misconduct” or “wrongdoing.”

The headline itself is so telling: Siegel “has alarmed some insiders with his spending and style.”

What white executive gets called out in one of the country’s leading newspapers on account of his style?

As for the substance:

Just to pick one of the observations in the story about Siegel’s “travel habits,” as the story calls them:

At the world indoor championships in March in Portland, Siegel for sure stayed at The Nines hotel. So did the senior executives of track and field’s world governing body, the International Assn. of Athletics Federations. One of the basics of the USATF top guy’s job is to forge and to maintain a constructive working relationship with IAAF leaders. It’s entirely reasonable to stay at the same hotel.

At any rate, those “habits”? Approved by the USATF board of directors.

His compensation package, loaded with performance bonuses that pushed his package to $1.7 million? Same.

USATF competes for sponsorship dollars against the four primary major leagues and the roughly 30 teams in each league. So to suggest that Siegel’s compensation package should somehow be measured against a “typical non-profit” just misses the mark.

Siegel buys a laptop and the assertion is he did so to save — or somehow evade — all of $112 in sales taxes? One, it’s a work-related laptop so he’s saving USATF money. Second, this is so ticky-tack it’s hard to even know why it was deemed publishable. When was the last time a white chief executive was harassed over $112 in sales tax?

By the way — a guy who took in $1.7 million can’t afford $112? Come on. The double standard is outrageous.

The $500 million Nike deal with USATF that is due to generate $23.7 million in commissions over the length of the deal, through 2039? Like either is a bad thing? One, as the story itself notes, the commission amounts to less than five percent. Two, the story asserts that the role of the two guys getting the commission “has not previously been disclosed.” Except that in the next sentence it says that the 2014 USATF 990 tax form lists the payment.

Wait a minute.  A Form 990 is a public document. Just to be obvious — that means it has in every regard previously been disclosed. The document sits on the USATF website.

The insinuation that there’s something amiss because USATF has done work with Matchbook, a marketing company that once shared office space with Max Siegel Inc.? As Siegel wrote in a memorandum in August to the USATF board of directors, “I do not own a stake in Matchbook Creative, have never owned a stake in the company and do not financially profit from the vendor relationship.”

Meantime, the story is punctuated with quotes critical of Siegel’s leadership “style.” In the interest of fairness, and referring back to the headline about the purported “alarm” of “insiders”:

The juicy quote about “leadership” and “Marie Antoinette” that ends the first copy block comes from the California lawyer David Greifinger, the former USATF board counsel.

Does the story disclose that, as former board counsel, Greifinger would have every reason to want that job back? No. Does it disclose that Greifinger is playing an active role opposing USATF in ongoing litigation — a lawsuit brought by the federation against the 13 former members of its youth committee involving a dispute over meet-registration software? That Greifinger is representing the other side and would thus have ample incentive to be critical of Siegel? No.

Next:

The story asserts that the “office environment” at USATF is now “authoritarian and tense.”

That’s somehow newsworthy? Iron-fisted white executives typically get showered with praise for running a tight ship but the black guy somehow is “authoritarian and tense?” Absurd. It’s also not true. Check with Duffy Mahoney, the USATF director of high performance. Over his nearly 30-year USATF career, he has been through it all and seen it all, the Masback years, the Logan years and more; he loves working with both Washington and Siegel. Is Mahoney quoted in the story? No.

The story offers quotes from the former USATF accounting manager Melissa Bowlby. In one, she says Siegel and Washington have “just made [USATF] their playground.” As for her credibility — maybe someone ought to ask if there is anything the reasonable person might find interesting in her USATF personnel file.

Then there is the email exchange involving Siegel and Jon Drummond, identified in the story as “an influential retired athlete.”

At the time of the exchange, Drummond was chair of the USATF athletes’ committee. The story highlights, in the third paragraph, a snippet in which Siegel says he will “fuck anyone up that goes after me personally.”

The accompanying screenshot farther down does what the story does not — provide the context, in which Siegel also makes plain the difference between what’s business and what’s personal.

In a perfect world, should Siegel be sending those kinds of texts? No. That said, is the recipient someone likely to be offended? Drummond is himself no stranger to attention-getting devices — see his performance at the 2003 Paris world championships, lying down in protest on the track after a false-start call, a stunt that delayed competition for nearly an hour.

At any rate: the idea that someone might drop an f-bomb is hardly news.

This, however, is: Jon Drummond is serving an eight-year doping-related suspension involving the sprinter Tyson Gay that arguably wrecked Gay’s career.

That for sure cuts to Drummond’s credibility. Is that mentioned in the story? No.

Finally, there is this, which underscores the real point of what’s going on at USATF: the organization is changing, for the way better, and a bunch of people who are not ‘insiders” but are on the outside looking in are pissed off about it. So, in the style they know, they are leveraging the Post to pursue petty personal politics, just like in the old days, in the hope that they can for real be “insiders.”

If for some inexplicable reason Siegel were to go, the chief operating officer takes over. That’s Washington.

From the story — an email provided by a former retail and marketing manager in which Washington calls Jill Geer, the federation’s longtime communications director, a “bitch.”

Again: like that’s worth being in the newspaper?

Here’s a good guess about why it’s in the paper. Geer declined to make Siegel available for the story. The reporter couldn’t himself call Geer a bitch in print for that. But, voila — the email.

You know what that is? That’s bitchy.

You might say: to the max.

31 medals (at least), all with class and character

RIO de JANEIRO — For a generation, USA Track & Field has been chasing an elusive goal: 30 Olympic medals.

Here in Rio, in a run at Olympic Stadium that underscores the major up-pointing trend in the American track and field scene, the Americans have — through Saturday night — won 31. The men’s marathon is yet to come Sunday. Those due to run include Meg Keflezighi, silver medalist at Athens 2004 and winner of the 2014 Boston Marathon.

On Saturday night, Matthew Centrowitz Jr. won the men’s 1500m in a front-running, tactically savvy 3:50 flat — the first gold for the United States in that race since 1908. In the men’s 5000, Britain’s Mo Farah won, completing the 2012 and 2016 5000m and 10,000m distance double, the American Paul Chelimo crossing the line second. Moments later, Chelimo was disqualified for a lane infringement; then, later, in the evening, he was reinstated, the first U.S. men’s 5k medal since Tokyo 1964.

Those were medals 28 and 29.

Then came the women’s and men’s 4x400 relays. Both American teams won, medals 30 and 31, Allyson Felix anchoring to a sixth straight Olympic victory for the U.S. women, all four thereafter carrying around the stadium a banner that said, “Thank you, Rio.”

To read the rest of this column, please click through to NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/2bcINiF

Semenya: center of dilemma with no easy answers

RIO de JANEIRO — The Olympics seek to promote three key values: excellence, friendship and respect. It thus follows logically that the Olympic ideal seeks to realize the best in each of us on the grounds that doing so makes all of us, together, better.

Sport has rules. These rules mean that a soccer game in Brussels is the same as a soccer game in Seoul is the same as a soccer game in Wichita.

In the person of Caster Semenya, the runner from South Africa who on Saturday night at Olympic Stadium dominated the women’s 800m, winning in 1:55.28, these two big ideas clash.

It is entirely unclear how these tensions could — or should — be resolved.

It is in the person of Semenya that sport stands at one of its new frontiers — at the intersection of science, cultural norms and evolving standards of gender fluidity.

To read the rest of this column, please click through to NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/2bujL1S

Bolt wraps up the three-pack three-peat

RIO de JANEIRO — After winning the eighth race of his Olympic career, Usain Bolt offered this trenchant observation:

“I don’t need to prove anything else,” he said after Thursday’s men’s 200-meter dash. “What else can I do to prove to the world I am the greatest?”

Nothing. Absolutely zero.

As Ashton Eaton, the decathlon champion said, and this goes for all who have had the privilege to bear witness to Bolt’s collection of astonishing turns on the track, said, “It has been an absolute pleasure to compete in the same era as Usain Bolt.”

Even the gods, of some sort, seemed to agree Friday night. A golden full moon lit up the sky over Olympic Stadium as Bolt, in what he has vowed will be his last Olympic competition, led the Jamaican men’s 4x100-meter relay team to victory, in 37.27 seconds.

To read the rest of this column, please click through to NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/2bDSA0X

Simply, all around, the best

RIO de JANEIRO — Ashton Eaton is, again, the world's greatest all-around athlete.

And so, so much more.

To fully appreciate the gold medal that Ashton won Thursday night after 10 events in the decathlon means to wholly appreciate as well the bronze medal that his wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, who competes for Canada, won last Saturday in the heptathlon.

Ashton and Brianne are husband and wife. And way more.

They are a team. One’s success is the other’s.

To read the rest of this column, please click through to NBCOlympics: http://bit.ly/2b2ZP6v

Weird, easy, fun: a one-off relay run-off

RIO de JANEIRO — Some people love, in their lives, to create drama. Allyson Felix is not one of these people. She is calm, steady, composed, even-keeled. Pretty much all the time.

Some mysterious karma, however, seemingly delights in connecting the Olympic experience and Allyson Felix with weird mega-drama.

“Why me?” Felix said Thursday evening with a smile.

Referring to her brother and manager, Wes, she said, “I was laughing with my brother about it. Sometimes you just have to laugh. Yeah … it’s just very, very strange.”

In what is widely believed to be an unprecedented Olympic relay do-over, the U.S. women’s 4x100m team — with Felix pulling the second leg — ran Thursday morning in a tangled mess, then got the chance Thursday evening to run again, in a time trial, to try to qualify for the relay final back here Friday night at Olympic Stadium.

To read the rest of this column, please click through to NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/2bMU9xs

First time ever: U.S. women 1-2-3 at Olympic track event

RIO de JANEIRO — In tribute to everyone’s favorite guessing game Wednesday at the 2016 Olympics, herewith this twist on the Where’s Waldo game:

Where’s Ryan Lochte? Back in the United States! After first making a stop at Olympic Village!

Where are the gold, silver and bronze medals in the women’s 100m hurdles? Just like Ryan Lochte — same!

In the final event on a busy track and field calendar Wednesday at Olympic Stadium, Americans Brianna Rollins, Nia Ali and Kristi Castlin swept the women’s 100m hurdles, Rollins winning in 12.48 seconds.

The sweep by the U.S. women marked a significant first in Olympic history.

To read the rest of this column, please click through to NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/2bojZrh

Rio 2016 track meet: world-class buzzkill

RIO de JANEIRO — In a shining example of why track and field has such problems, many of the sport’s own making, the men’s 200m prelims got underway Tuesday afternoon — before a nearly-empty house — with its biggest star, Usain Bolt, running at 12:46 p.m. in the ninth of 10 heats. Justin Gatlin ran about a half-hour before, four heats prior.

Under what theory of marketing, salesmanship, promotion — more, relevance — are the No. 1 and No. 2 names in track and field slogging it out in the dog day afternoon?

It’s halfway through the Rio 2016 Olympic meet. Track and field should be seizing its moments in the once-every-four-years spotlight.

Instead, what we have is world-class buzzkill.

The 2016 world indoor championships, in Portland, Oregon, in March, went off before a full house, a show full of music, lights and world-class competition.

The 2012 Olympics in London were marked by full, rowdy crowds, day and night.

Here: not so much.

At the outset: it’s no fun to assert that the track and field competition has serious issues, especially amid what should be an Olympic celebration. But if not now, when?

By now, it’s well known that track’s worldwide governing body is confronting a range of extraordinary issues, among them a purported corruption scheme involving the former president tied to allegations of state-sponsored doping in Russia.

If there ever should be a week when all of the sport’s big-picture issues could be brushed aside, this ought to be it — the Olympics.

Track and field, for all its challenges, and there are many, holds enormous potential. It has long been the king of the modern Olympics and maybe still should be — the one sport that anyone anywhere can, and pretty much does, do, at least in some form. Run, jump, throw. Basic.

Instead, this Rio meet finds itself bedeviled by a bevy of logistics, location, pricing and scheduling challenges, all of which surely have contributed to the sparse crowds. And then there remains the sport’s underlying presentation problem: doping. As in: can you believe what you see? 

All of that was encapsulated in Tuesday’s women’s long jump qualifying. The lone Russian allowed to compete here, Darya Klishina, jumped away. She was part of a field of 38, two groups of 19, that got cut to 12. Eighth, she passed  through to the final.

Why in the world go through such a ridiculous exercise — cutting 38 to 12? Same with the men’s high jump qualfiying on Sunday night — 44, two fields of 22, to 15, an event that Canada’s Derek Drouin won Tuesday night at 2.38 meters, or 7-9 3/4.

All sports, especially Olympic sports, depend on stars and on stories. 

Swimming and gymnastics, which dominate the first week of the Games, have thrown off stars who have become household names: Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles, among them, Biles on Tuesday winning her fourth Rio gold medal, in the women’s floor exercise.

Track and field, at these Olympics, seems determined to sabotage virtually every great story there might be.

Christian Taylor is a threat to break the world record every time he competes in the triple jump. He and Will Claye went 1-2 in London, and on Tuesday they went 1-2 again.

In a competition that started at 9:50 in the morning.

Seriously — 9:50 in the morning. To say that the stadium was not full would be — generous.

Afterward, Claye proposed to his girlfriend, the 2008 Olympian and hurdler Queen Harrison. 

Who saw any of this?

In the heats Tuesday morning of the women’s 5000m, American Abbey D’Agostino and New Zealand's Nikki Hamblin tangled together, then fell. In a lovely moment of sportsmanship, D’Agostino then helped Hamblin up, and — painfully — each finished the race.

As the Indianapolis Star would report, the moment drew attention from international journalists — reporters from eight countries waiting to talk to the athletes afterward.

Eight.

There are roughly 200 nations here in Rio.

The men’s pole vault provided high drama: Brazil’s Thiago Braz da Silva won in an Olympic-record 6.03, or 19-9 1/4. Competition started Monday evening and ended after the clock said Tuesday morning.

Granted, it rained Monday, hard, and there was a delay. Even so, if one of the key drivers of the Olympic movement is to draw young fans, how exactly does crowing a champion after midnight come anywhere near achieving that goal? 

Moreover, the American Sam Kendricks took bronze, behind da Silva and the great French champion, Renaud Lavillenie. Kendricks went to Ole Miss and is a U.S. Army reservist; that medal is the first for an American male in the Olympic pole vault in 12 years.

The news conference following that pole vault competition? It started after 2 a.m.

When what happened to Ryan Lochte is in the forefront of way too many minds and the bus schedule at night is irregular, at best: how many logically thinking reporters or news crews want to stick around for a bus that’s supposed to be there at the top of the hour, meaning 3 or 4 a.m. but, you know, may or may not be?

The aftermath of the pole vault further illustrates the disconnect.

The sparse crowd still left in the stadium had cheered boisterously for da Silva. After, Lavillenie said, "If this is a nation where they only want Brazil and they spit on others, then you should not organize the Olympics," he said. He also made a comparison to Hitler's 1936 Berlin Games -- which he then retracted and apologized.

Even so, at Tuesday night's medal ceremony, Lavillenie got hit with a barrage of boos. It moved him to tears.

This was too much for a great many people, among them the International Olympic Committee president, Thomas Bach, who called the boos "shocking," adding it was "unacceptable at the Olympics."

Similarly, Seb Coe, the IAAF president, put out this tweet:

https://twitter.com/sebcoe/status/765728647953219586

Sunday night proved the one night the stadium was full — because of Bolt, of course. And it had the added electricity of a world record in the men’s 400m, from South Africa’s Wayde van Niekerk, who ran 43.03, taking down Michael Johnson’s 17-year-old mark, 43.18.

But Sunday night also highlights the complexities that have made this meet so — unsettling.

Even that men’s 100m final proved problematic. The two semifinals were run at 9 and 9:07 p.m., the final at 10:25. Both Bolt and Gatlin complained later that the time in between was just not enough.

Part of the challenge here has centered on weather -- for instance, Monday’s rain.

Part with location. At prior editions of the Games, track and field and the ceremonies, opening and closing, shared a stadium. Here, ceremonies are at Maracanã. Track and field is taking place at Engenhao. Think Wrigley Field or Fenway Park in the middle of a dense urban neighborhood. Unlike those two baseball parks, however, Engenhao is super-difficult to get to and from — 90 minutes, typically, from Copacabana.

Part, price. Tickets for Tuesday’s prelims ranged from $100 to $350, for the evening finals from $260 to $900. 

Part of the challenge, too, is simple scheduling. 

This Olympic meet runs for nine days.

The U.S. nationals go for four.  

Six would be more than enough.

There are lots of reasons - hello, ticket sales — to slice and dice the track and field schedule into this many days. But that isn’t happening. Outside of Sunday night, the crowds have been thin, at best.

IAAF spokesman Chris Turner, asked about the thin crowds, said:

”The IAAF's original timetable of April 2014 had evening sessions earlier and qualifications during the morning session. This was changed following requests from the local organizing committee Rio 2016 and broadcasting to have finals in the morning sessions and a later start in the evening for a combination of broadcast reasons and to help with ticket sales.  We always want to work with organizers to produce schedules which meet their requirements and broadcast to reach global audiences. This is what we have tried to achieve in this case."

With this kind of result:

The Tuesday morning session ran to 25 — 25! — events. The list: that men’s triple jump final, the women’s discus throw final (won by Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic), rounds for the women’s pole vault and heats of the women’s 5,000m, men’s 1500, men’s 200 and women’s 100 hurdles.

The Tuesday evening affair included 19 different events, building toward the two key race finals, the women’s 1500m and the men’s 110m hurdles.

Compare: last Thursday evening at the pool, when Phelps won the 200m individual medley and Simone Manuel the women’s 100m freestyle, there were all of 10 races, four of which were finals. 

As for the women’s 1500: 

The men’s 100m is often called the “dirtiest race in track.” This appellation goes back to at least 1988 and Ben Johnson. 

Truth:

The women’s 1500 has historically proven way worse.

In the London 2012 women’s 1500m final, for instance, six of the top nine have been linked to performance-enhancing drugs. 

After Sunday’s women’s 1500m semifinal, American Jenny Simpson spoke out about Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba, the world record holder in the event. Dibaba’s manager, the Somali Jama Aden, was arrested two months ago in Spain on suspicion of possessing doping products. Authorities have not accused Dibaba of any wrongdoing and after the Tuesday final she declared, through a translator, that she was "completely and crystal clean from doping."

Simpson had said after semifinals, “I think that you know a tree by the fruit that it bears. And if a tree bears sour frut, then the fruit around it are likely infected. And so I live my life that way in every way, not just through doping.”

In a reference to the World Anti-Doping Agency, she added, “And so I think that if WADA is on the case, they’ll find what they need to find. I hope so.”

Simpson finished third Tuesday night, in 4:10.53. She is the first American woman to medal in the 1500.

“The 1500m is unbelievably hard,” Simpson said late Tuesday. “And I’ve chosen to take on a challenge that I didn’t know if I could do it. There are moments where I thought, ‘Why am I here? Running 1500m is so hard.’ To take a piece of history — I don’t know, I sat down with my coaches … in 2013, and I told them I wanted to leave a mark on this sport that everyone in America could be proud of.

“I wanted to race as hard as I could, and be clean, and be someone that people could really be proud to cheer for.”

Dibaba took second, 4:10.27.

Kenya’s 22-year-old Faith Kipyegon, silver medalist behind Dibaba at last year’s world championships, won the race, in 4:08.92.

The stadium was maybe one-quarter full.

Allyson Felix on being just shy: 'It's just painful'

RIO de JANEIRO — What a tropical scene there was Monday noon time here at the 2016 Olympic Games. At Copacabana, for instance, the smell of coconut milk mixed with hot-out-of-the-oil-fries, the background to a visual tableau featuring the dental flossiest of bikinis and the waves lapping gently on the sugary sand.

Then, as the knowing Brazilians called it, the sudoeste blew in, a cold wind — from, well, the southeast — bearing the mean grey line of clouds signaling a major frente fria, a cold front with maybe days of rain. This is the Southern Hemisphere winter tropical version of what Americans on the East Coast would know as a nor’easter.

At Olympic Park, seven people, including two children, were injured when an overhead television camera tied to overhead cables crashed to the ground.

At Olympic Stadium, the wind — estimated by officials at between 60 and 90 kilometers per hour, 37 to 55 mph — toppled railings, tore at banners and more. About 50 minutes before the fourth night of the Rio 2016 track and field program got underway, the rain started coming down in sheets, straight down, then sideways. The men’s pole vault and women’s discus competitions: thanks but another day.

For those who believe in portents: all of this was maybe a sign of the storm clouds on the horizon for the American star Allyson Felix in the last race of the night, the women’s 400.

To read the rest of this column, please click through to NBCOlympics.com: http://bit.ly/2bak5jy