Nick Symmonds, the 2013 World silver medalist, has been left off the U.S. team for the Beijing meet (Aug. 22-30) following a dispute over a contract requiring athletes to wear Nike-branded Team USA gear at team functions.
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The US will officially announce their squad for the World Championships on Monday. He contended this violated his contract with Brooks, and was objectionable because he doesn’t share in revenue USATF receives from the Nike sponsorship. With Nike serving as the official uniform sponsor for the American track team, Symmonds and the rest of the U.S. squad must wear that company’s gear at all team functions.
“Given that my primary sponsor is Brooks Running, I’m contractually obligated to wear Brooks Running at all events that aren’t official team events”, said Symmonds. “Apparently, they are”.
American athletes who will return to defend their individual world titles are Ashton Eaton (decathlon), LaShawn Merritt (400m) David Oliver (110m hurdles), Brittney Reese (long jump) and Brianna Rollins (100m hurdles). Marquee sprinters such as Justin Gatlin, Tyson Gay and Allyson Felix are also on the team.
The 31-year-old Symmonds is known for taking stances on social and business issues that surround what he believes is a widely corrupt world of track and field.
That’s the endgame here – not just for athletes to be able to wear logos of their sponsors wherever they want, but to force organizers of the sport to share their wealth. He said he was willing to wear Team USA gear during competition and official news conferences and at any awards ceremony.
Symmonds has said that he will be in conversations with various lawyers to explore possible options.
Alternate 800 meter qualifier Clayton Murphy of New Paris, Ohio will get the Team USA slot vacated by Symmonds. As Toni Reavis so poignantly wrote over the weekend, “until the athletes of track and field truly unite, they will have no one to blame but themselves for continuing to be treated if not as serfs, as they were for decades, but simply as independent contractors where any one protestor among them can be easily replaced, as Max Siegel has warned Nick Symmonds of being for Beijing”. Change clearly needs to be made at the USATF level with regards to sponsorship and revenue-sharing, as Symmonds outlines in his Huffington Post statement, but none of them will ever occur if he is left to fight this battle on his own. As we continue to increase our financial investment in athletes, we appreciate the input and collaboration of athlete leaders and advocates on better defining what it means to be a professional track and field athlete in the United States.
“You just can’t give a monopoly to a company and expect there to be a healthy, viable sport”, Symmonds said.
He won the 800 at the national championships in June, finishing in a time of 1 minute, 44.53 seconds. Symonds decided to skip lucrative competitions in Europe to concentrate on his training in Seattle, in order to be in prime shape for Beijing.
The U.S.’ preeminent 800m runners are not going to the World Track and Field Championships for vastly different reasons.
“I’m about to go have a beer and I’m 99 percent certain that I am not going to be on the team and that pisses me off because I earned that (spot)”, Symmonds said.
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Although he has an airline ticket and a visa into China, Symmonds isn’t sure if he will attend as a spectator or watch from home.
