Ajee Wilson OUT of Worlds 800 - Molly Ludlow to replace

That sucks. Not only is she fast, she also belongs to the good side.

Too bad, she has had a great year and would have contended with Sum for gold.

I've never heard her have injury issues, I wonder if losing her shoe at nationals triggered something?

At least Molly finally gets on a national team, she also has worked her butt off this year and has been consistent and aggressive.

Injury withdraw.

Ludlow ran a PR in the 800 of 1:58.68 in July so is obviously in shape for Worlds.

The tweet from her manager didn't specify the nature of the injury

Tweet from her manager, Ray Flynn:

Her agent Ray Flynn just posted on Twitter that she's been injured since USAs.

https://twitter.com/RayPFlynn/status/630762493233754112

Molly Ludlow was 4th at USAs and is in line to go assuming USATF names her as a replacement.

Ray Flynn tweet

"Unfortunately had to notify @usatf that @AjeeW will not be able to represent Team USA at @iaaf Beijing #injury she even had during US Champs"

I guess it might be time to start kicking around the issue of the US selection process and whether US champs are too hard on our athletes. There have been a lot of weak performances by US runners this summer. Symmonds is not running well. Centro and Leo have had some awful performances. Emma Coburn has not been very competitive post-US champs. And now Ajee is injured.

Solidarity with Nick Symmonds. #LetNickRun

Precious Roy wrote:

I guess it might be time to start kicking around the issue of the US selection process and whether US champs are too hard on our athletes. There have been a lot of weak performances by US runners this summer. Symmonds is not running well. Centro and Leo have had some awful performances. Emma Coburn has not been very competitive post-US champs. And now Ajee is injured.

I think a suggestion to put the selection in the hands of the officials at the USATF instead of a competitive meet would be very well received today.

While Ms. Wilson is more talented, both women are quite attractive, so the USA team loses nothing there. Hope that Ms. Ludlow can keep running well.

What relevance is their looks?

NOOOOOOOOOOO!

That really sucks.

Should have picked Maggie Vessey instead.

Precious Roy wrote:

I guess it might be time to start kicking around the issue of the US selection process and whether US champs are too hard on our athletes. There have been a lot of weak performances by US runners this summer. Symmonds is not running well. Centro and Leo have had some awful performances. Emma Coburn has not been very competitive post-US champs. And now Ajee is injured.

Centro set a pretty solid PR.

And he has consistently performed well at champions at the end of the year.

The US trials has noting to do with Symmonds not racing.

In general the US selection system has not seemed to negatively affect how they do at worlds, looking back over the last few decades.

I think most of them like getting the team selection of the way and getting on with their European season and preparing for worlds.

They have to race to make the team.

The US is too deep in almost every event to do any subjective selection system.

And going off a list of times of races run at different venues wouldn't work either.

Here is one change that may work.

Run all the prelims at USATF at the end of June to determine the finalists.

Maybe select some athletes to have a bye to the finals based on some past performance, like a medal or having a leading time.

run an all finals one day meet at the end of July, top 3 make the team.

Jonathan Gault wrote:

Her agent Ray Flynn just posted on Twitter that she's been injured since USAs.

https://twitter.com/RayPFlynn/status/630762493233754112

Molly Ludlow was 4th at USAs and is in line to go assuming USATF names her as a replacement.

Based on where her schedule ended, I am pretty sure she got hurt at USA Champs. Her shoe came off on the same leg she was having some shin problems just prior to USAs. As a T1 athlete, she could easily earn $100K from just the DL meets, I doubt she would pass that up unless she had to. Heal completely; as important as the WCs are, there are even bigger fish to fry next year.

Ajee is one of my favorite athletes, she had an incredible high school and junior career, but was pretty much overlooked because of the Mary Cain hype and she never made a negative comment about it.

TrackCoach wrote:

Based on where her schedule ended, I am pretty sure she got hurt at USA Champs. Her shoe came off on the same leg she was having some shin problems just prior to USAs. As a T1 athlete, she could easily earn $100K from just the DL meets, I doubt she would pass that up unless she had to. Heal completely; as important as the WCs are, there are even bigger fish to fry next year.

Ajee is one of my favorite athletes, she had an incredible high school and junior career, but was pretty much overlooked because of the Mary Cain hype and she never made a negative comment about it.

Yes, Ajee is underhyped.

As someone who doesn't claim to be an expert on finances, can you please back up how she's going to make $100k in Europe from 'just the DL meets'?

Since USAs, there have been just 5 DL meets.

Paris FRA 04th July 2015

Lausanne SUI 09th July 2015

Monaco MON 17th July 2015

London (2 Days) GBR 24th/25th July 2015

Stockholm SWE 30th July 2015

Of those 5, only 3 had the women's 800 as DL events - Paris, London and Stockholm. It's my understanding that appearance fees are pretty much non-existent for someone like Wilson.

So even if she'd won all 3, that would be $30,000. However Sum ran and won both Paris and London. Second place is $6,000. So realistic best case scenario for Ajee would have been $22,000 in prize money (1 win, 2 seconds). Even if she was getting some nominal appearance fee, let's say 8k total, that's only $30k. I think you are off by a factor of 3.

Any expert of finances here?

trueathleticsfan wrote:

What relevance is their looks?

Really?... You are asking that on THIS site?

I'm not close to an expert, my assumptions are probably based on the same sources you have. Although, I was incorrectly thinking of a full DL season as opposed to up to this point. Btw, two identical athletes performance-wise, can get totally different appearance fees. Appearance fees are a collaboration between the agent and meet director and usually aren't disclosed. On second thought, $100K is a little high, but I am pretty sure it is much higher than the $30 you came up with. A decade ago, I did know what a couple of athletes were earning and an athlete like Ajee earned more than $30k then... perhaps things have went backwards.