When you mentioned a podrace as Anakin’s introduction, I thought it was brilliant. However, the exectution is atrocious. I imagined it would feature Qui-Gon and co. stumbling in and deciding to watch the race. Then, he thinks “Hey this kid’s strong with the Force”.
There’s not much footage for that to work though. Further, why would they randomly go to a podrace while they’re on a dangerous mission? The biggest issue is one of the problems of the original - Obi-wan is stuck on the ship the whole time and never sees Anakin’s ability in action.