The Foreign Post - FPI

Track and field stars are hoping a maiden world championships on US soil will shine the light on athletes in a country where athletics is dwarfed by the big money sports of American football, basketball and baseball.

The irony for many American athletes is that they are generally far better known in Europe, where many spend large chunks of their season travelling on a circuit that takes in some of the most iconic track stadiums in front of some of the sport's most avid fans.

But hope burns that the July 15-23 world champs in Eugene, Oregon, the birthplace of US sporting goods giant Nike, will shift the spotlight.

"Most of the time walking around (in the US) nobody knows who track athletes are," lamented Sandi Morris, an American pole vaulter who has won multiple medals on the global stage.

"You can walk up to a random stranger in the street and ask them who Allyson Felix is and no, they would have no idea."

Morris, speaking to reporters in Eugene on Wednesday, was referring to her US teammate who has a record world haul of 18 career medals and 11 Olympic podium finishes, including seven gold.

Armand "Mondo" Duplantis might compete for Sweden, but the world pole vault record holder was born and raised in the United States.

"The whole of the United States probably I can be a little bit more annonymous," he said from his US base in Indianapolis where he admitted to being well known.

"Being in Sweden and in the United States and seeing the difference in the the way I live in both is quite different."

- Just reality -

Wider anonymity, Duplantis added, was "just the reality of the situation".

"They have so many big sports here in baseball, football and basketball and that doesn't leave so much room for that many more and I guess track and field is more perceived as an Olympic sport.

"The Olympics are very huge in the United States and if you're able to win the Olympics or even go to the Olympics, it's a very big deal, the biggest thing you can do as a track and field athlete in the United States."

Morris admitted that athletics "for some reason had taken a back seat", but was in her opinion slowly changing.

"Part because of social media and our own ability to broadcast our experience and educate Americans about the fact there's a professional track circuit, you can make a living doing this," the two-time world indoor champion said.

"I mean you'd just laugh at the questions, 'You make a living pole-vaulting? No! What do you do for a living?!'"

Duplantis argued that "having the world championships in the United States this year to try and bring them and not just Olympics into the mainstream can be a really good thing for track and field".

Morris echoed his sentiments, saying it was a "huge opportunity".

"We just have to keep the positivity and keep sharing our sport to as many Americans as possible.

"Most Americans only know one thing about track and field and it's the Olympics.

"It's about educating them and bringing the world championships into the forefront and putting it on television and just getting it in front of the American crowd in general... we're introducing new fans to the sport."

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Lydia Wood sits opposite The Atlas pub in west London, meticulously adding detail to her drawing of the building and pausing only occasionally to sharpen her pencil.

The 28-year-old artist has built up a sizeable TikTok and Instagram following with her detailed sketches of well-loved London pubs.

She has set an ambitious but, she thinks, not impossible, goal -- drawing all 3,500 of them.

So far she has managed "a few hundred", many of them near to her home in Catford, southeast London, she told AFP.

The project came about during the coronavirus pandemic when lockdown meant she was unable to work providing children's after-school art classes.

"It did kind of stem from just being, you know, a pub person, like that's where I socialise with my friends," she said.

Wood's drawings get thousands of likes on Instagram and TikTok, where she posts short videos about the process, then holds up the finished sketch in front of the pub.

The freelance artist had always drawn some pictures of pubs to sell at Christmas markets.

But when she announced her plan and asked for commissions to draw the capital's pubs, "things went a little bit crazy", she admitted.

Now creating art is her full-time job, mostly carrying out individual commissions, including pubs and houses.

She also sells prints on the e-commerce craft site Etsy.

"They feel so quintessentially British. I think that whether you're a pub person or not, they're great buildings to look at or be in."

- 'Local' knowledge -

The Atlas pub, near Earl's Court, was suggested by a TikTok follower and sits on a quiet side street near a leafy cemetery.

But Wood still has to put up with screeching ambulances driving past and a plumber's van unhelpfully parking in front of the building.

Some publicans have given her a hearty welcome when they realised she was drawing their buildings.

But The Atlas, its bricks painted glossy red and the upper walls covered with creeper vines, is closed until late afternoon.

Inside, the Victorian-era pub has lovingly preserved period features such as wooden panelling.

It is now a "foodie" pub serving dishes such as risotto or confit leg of duck for dinner.

"It looks quite posh," said Wood.

While she does not see the project as an excuse for a pub crawl, she likes to go into the places she sketches to get a sense of their vibe.

A "local" with regular drinkers has a completely different atmosphere from a central London pub with its transient passing trade.

"When I've been inside a pub after I've drawn it, there's definitely a different kind of feeling of 'oh yeah I know that pub and I can recommend it to someone'."

- 'Peaceful' -

A few days later, Wood is in busy Soho to draw a very different pub, The Coach and Horses on Greek Street, which she has been into before.

"When you've been inside the pub you kind of have a connection to it," she said.

She chose the pub because a commentator on one of her TikTok videos told her of a family connection to the pub.

Their grandfather, Norman Balon, was famously known as "London's rudest landlord" and ran the pub for more than 60 years.

"I loved that sort of anecdote," said Wood. "It immediately drew me towards it."

The central London pub in a historic 19th-century building has had a colourful clientele, including journalists from satirical magazine Private Eye.

Other regulars included the legendary alcoholic newspaper columnist Jeffrey Bernard, who was immortalised in a Keith Waterhouse play "Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell".

It is now managed by a brewery chain.

On a Saturday afternoon, there is a constant stream of passers-by and drinkers sit with pints outside.

"That took nearly three hours," she said of her finished drawing of an "iconic part of Soho".

"It's funny -- there are so many people around, but actually it felt quite a peaceful drawing."

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