The 2020 NZL champs in Christchurch were a success from many points of view. Probably the best organized and most interesting championship in the country since years. For once , the throwing events were given their fair share of the feast and not near completely ignored like it is usually exception of the ”star event” that shot put has become in the country. Warm up facilities for throws were excellent .Spectators were perfectly informed of everything that was happening on the field with the speaker calling for their attention of giving information on the changes of placing . Well done ! Hopefully we shall maintain this new standard. But there is still a bad side of the medal which is the results of years and years of poor development strategy in the country . The athletes participation was sometimes extremely low and especially in the ”critical” age groups of U18 and U20 . the U 20 especially are on the brink of extinction. Some of these statistic document numbers are more than alarming : average participant per event Sen M 5 – Sen W 3,5 – U20 M 1,5 – U20 W 2,75 – U18 M 4,75 – U18 W 4,75 . Indeed there were a lot of great performances by a small bunch of world class athletes but this cannot hide the growing deep misery of the ”second layer” or of the ” development” young athletes. A comparison with similar statistics at Auckland champs just confirms the situation is the result of a much deeper and wider issue.