Some purists might not like it, but athletics needs events such as the Ultimate Championship and Athlos to help the sport thrive, writes Katharine Merry.

I can’t really remember a month quite like the one we’ve just witnessed in the sport of athletics. Talk about finishing the outdoor track and field season with a flourish. 

Before I go on, I will emphasise that I am writing this from the viewpoint of someone who was working at both the Ultimate Championship and Athlos events that have caused such a stir in recent weeks. I was a stadium announcer in Budapest and London, so I didn’t experience them in quite the same way as others will have but, from what I can tell, these meetings more than served their purpose. 

Let’s start with the Ultimate Championship. Was it perfect? No. Was it ambitious? Absolutely. Was it a success? I would say so. I don't think people yet fully understand and appreciate how much work went into the last three years, taking the event from conception to delivery. It was a huge undertaking, it got a lot of attention and, as a first attempt at a new concept, I think it was done really, really well. 

There was always a transparency that: “This might not be perfect straight away, but we're going to roll with it, we're going to deliver it, we're going to learn from it, we're going to take bits that are good, while taking away bits that aren't so good.” It was never going to be all singing and dancing straight away, but I think that it was a lot more positive than many people perhaps would have liked it to have been.

There was a pressure on the Ultimate to deliver something different and I think it did that without trying to reinvent the wheel, but there were little details in the staging that showed a level of thoughtfulness and consideration that made a difference. 

To start with, it looked different. The design and set-up – with the pink sand and the black outfield – was one of my favourite things about it. I think it was Jazmin Sawyers who said the staging gave the feel of being in a nightclub and, with the lights, it looked fabulous. 

Fundamentally, the athletes loved it, too. Don't get me wrong, I know that there's debate about the events that were included and those that were left out, but the athletes who were competing definitely responded and the performances were still of a really high standard. 

The party atmosphere was backed up by world class performances, and that's why it worked so well. It wasn't a damp squib, was it? 

That was also helped by the money, of course, which wasn’t to be sniffed at. How often can an athlete go chasing a $150,000 prize? I spoke to Kenny Bednarek, who said he had some more ideas that he wanted to share around making the next edition better. By doing the 100m and 200m double, he walked away with $300,000 so it was definitely worth his while. The serious money brought out the serious performances.

But so did the way the athletes were treated. Everything was centred around them and they were given a stage and a platform that many of them will never have experienced before.   

And I thought it was brilliant that so many of them mixed together. After their interviews the athletes were funnelled into the VIP area halfway down the home straight and I think people liked seeing them together in the same space. 

How often do you see Haruki Kitaguchi chatting to Gianmarco Tamberi or Usain Bolt shooting the breeze with Jakob Ingebrigtsen? It all helped to create this more relaxed and celebratory feel that still managed to be athlete-centred, and I think that encouraged them to respond. They were made to feel special.

As I say, World Athletics wanted it to be different and, for my role, I definitely had to think differently. In the lead up to the event I was on a few video calls with the organisers that involved over 100 people explaining how this was going to be removed from the norm. 

As announcers, we were encouraged to phrase things differently, to focus more on what an athlete might be feeling or thinking. The way we presented it was definitely quicker, too, as the events came thick and fast. Less was more in some respects and no sooner had we crowned a champion and announced them then it was on to something else. 

We were given large documents that explained the style they wanted things to be delivered in. There was a painstaking level of detail and it was much more about trying to paint a picture, to tell a story rather than the normal type of commentary.

What would I change? As I think many people have already said, the prediction graphics didn’t work. They should have been ditched after day one and I was at a bit of a loss to understand why they were kept for days two and three. Personally, I'm not interested in what other people think is going to happen but, if you're going to use stuff like that, you've got to make it credible.

The biggest issue I can see going forward, though, is the potential rotation of events that are included and that's always going to be very, very difficult. This is an event built for TV. It's a three-hour window and it’s just not logistically possible to fit everything in. 

Some of the field eventers, understandably, are frustrated and the organisers will look at that. Do you really need the 100m, 200m, 400m and both hurdles events, for example? Could you lose one of the sprint events for another field event?

But it’s not possible to please all of the people all of the time and that goes with the territory of having so many different events as part of the same sport. I would argue that those who are commenting and looking for everything to be included are missing the whole point of what the Ultimate is and what it's been built for. 

I think there are some out there who are also missing the point when it comes to Athlos. 

It’s an American concept and it is not trying to be anything other than a centre stage platform and celebration of some of the best women in athletics. 

That's it. That's what it's trying to do. Why just women? Because that's what the organisers want to do, and they can afford to do it, so they're doing it. They're not trying to rival the world championships, the Olympics, the Ultimate or anything. 

It’s very different to what people are used to and I know athletics purists didn't like a lot of it but, ultimately, it's a celebration and a showcase. With this, and also the Ultimate, you have to bear in mind the target audience – younger people and the more casual fans. 

And what I do know is that, after Keely Hodgkinson stepped out in that speed suit, my 12-year-old daughter started messaging me about it, how cool she thought it was and asking me what I thought about Keely’s race. She’s never done that before but she and her friend were talking about it because it was everywhere – over one million people were watching Athlos at one point. And now my daughter has asked if she can come with me to the meeting next year. To me, that’s a big deal and shows that the message is getting through.

I can understand why more traditional fans would potentially not have liked either Athlos or the Ultimate but, regardless of whether I was working on them or not, I love the fact that the sport is now being presented in various ways to try and engage, inspire and bring in new audiences. It's not to everybody's taste, but I think people need to realise that athletics has to adapt massively and you can't really accuse the sport of not doing that this year.

Take each event for what it is ... it’s all good exposure for the sport.