I attended the track meet yesterday. It was the first time I have attended a college meet in a number of years. I enjoyed it to a certain degree, but it did not live up to my expectations and it lasted so long I did not stay for probably the last half of the meet. I left primarily due to the following:
1) There were apparently no preliminaries conducted earlier in the meet or on Friday. This caused virtually every event to have 3 to 6 heats!
2) If there are multiple heats to be run, why run the fastest seeded runners in the first heat? I assume the runners turned in previous times and were seeded (or could be seeded). By having the fastest runners in the first heat of virtually every race, the winner was determined in the first race in almost every event. That made sitting through another 2, 3 ,4 or 5 additional heats anticlimactic and boring.
I enjoy a good track meet, but in my opinion, UL could make those two adjustments and the meet would have been so much better and fun to attend. By doing this me and, I assume others, might have stayed for the entire meet and been able to view and support the athletes in every event, not just those that performed in the first half of the meet.
I hate to complain, but it would make attending future track meets much more enticing if fans could show up and be able to witness only the finals or maybe no more than 2 heats of each event rather than having to sit through so many practice runs by athletes that have no chance of winning or placing in an event.
I know my opinion doesn't count, but those are my thoughts.