Jim Estes, USATF Long Distance Program Manager, Clarifies Why USATF is Not Sending a Full Men's Team to World Cross Country March 11, 2007 by: LetsRun.com
USATF is not sending a full US men's team to the World Cross Country Championships this year (6 runners score, 9 can run, but the US is sending 8) in Kenya. This is the first time we can think of it not happening so we contacted USATF's Long Distance Program Manager, Jim Estes to ask him about the reasoning. He wrote us the response below, explaining that a combination of factors came into play including budgetary ones, and the fact that so many men gave up their spots on the team. (The US had to go to the 15th man at the nationals to fill the 8th spot). So basically by the US men showing that Worlds is not too important to them, USATF decided with its limited budget to save some money for spending elsewhere. (Our apologies for not getting this up earlier, he wrote us on March 1)
His response is below:
We have several goals when it comes to World Championship events, the main priority is to send the best team possible but with some level of budgetary responsibility.
Basically, while we would like to be able to send the largest team possible to each of our 16 international events each year, we consider the potential cost and benefit as well as the potential impact on remaining teams this year (and every year). To choose a team for World Cross Country by going as far down the list as necessary just to send nine athletes is not likely to enhance our overall team performance significantly nor accomplish our mission of sending a truly competitive team.
Additionally, if we fill the roster just for the sake filling it now, it will have implications for teams later in the year such as the World Championships Marathon, which right now looks as if it will be a reasonably competitive team.
It should also be noted that not only have multiple USATF Teams scheduled for 2007 taken prudent cuts in team size (athletes and staff), we have made specific cuts on the staff level of the World Cross Team. I should note that our cuts in staff were done judiciously given the special health and security concerns for this event. In fact, Bill Roe gave up his spot as Team Leader (a key IAAF protocol position) to ensure that we were able to maximize the number of athletes we sent.
Like anything else, we simply must weigh the cost/benefits of these teams and in the case of this year, we are obliged to show some level of financial responsibility.
As far as giving the athletes an option to pay their own way, we didn't see this as an option for this event for many reasons including security and health concerns.
