Am I being dumb here? I feel if someone knows they won’t qualify in their heat they would purposely sandbag their race to save for the losers race right? I know most wouldn’t do this but if you’re in a heat with like a reigning world champion/Olympic champ it would only make sense.
I was thinking the same exact thing. Like that 1500m heat with Jakob, Tim C, and Kerr. Why waste your effort going all out to lose that heat, when you have to come back again anyway for the losers bracket race.
This. Jakob, Tim, Wightman etc could deliberately just run a 5 min 1500 first time around as they know they will have an even easier job winning the loser bracket. Weird stuff.
When I first saw this, I assumed (not sure why in hindsight) that it just meant that only the runners who just miss out go into the repechage. That is, if there are 6 big Qs from each heat, then the repechage includes all the 7th-, 8th-, and 9th-place finishers, and then the top 6 from that race go through.
I actually like that idea, because it differentiates those who get big Qs from those who get small ones in a way that the current system doesn't (because the 'best losers' have to run more). Plus, we get another race, and most likely some great storylines too.
If you think that time should be more important than finishing position, then the current system is probably still preferable.
In any case, though, WA's proposal doesn't seem like the ideal approach at all.
The marathon 'auto' standard is now 2:09:40 and 2:28:00. Yet the quota says 100 athletes. Which is it?? There won't be 100 men and 100 women who run under 2:09:40/2:28:00. To be ranked in top 100 when limiting to only 3 per country you only need be a consistent 2:13/2:14 guy or 2:32/2:33 woman. If you need to have the 2:09:40 standard then a guy like Cam Levins, who ended up being 4th this year, wouldn't have even qualified since he just had a 2:10 to get him into the race this year. There were only 40 women who started the marathon in Eugene, it looked like a tiny field of athletes for a marathon road race. There shouldn't be such an emphasis to limit the field size of the marathon.
You missed the bit where it says WA's aim is to have the fields for all events be 50% filled by auto qualifiers with the remaining 50% qualifying by World Rankings positions. That's the reason for the toughening up of the entry standards.
"After consulting with our athletes and broadcasters, we believe this is an innovation which will make progression in these events more straightforward for athletes and will build anticipation for fans and broadcasters," World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said.
I can understand why some athletes would want this. There have been many instances (esp in the hurdles) where top competitors end up getting eliminated in the 1st round for some catastrophic reason.
"After consulting with our athletes and broadcasters, we believe this is an innovation which will make progression in these events more straightforward for athletes and will build anticipation for fans and broadcasters," World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said.
I can understand why some athletes would want this. There have been many instances (esp in the hurdles) where top competitors end up getting eliminated in the 1st round for some catastrophic reason.
The hurdles is the only event like this.I’ve never seen a prominent athlete eliminated in first round of 100 (except for Shacarri at USAs)
This new losers round seems so unnecessary and a complete waste.
does our sport really want more races at Worlds with athletes who aren’t that good?
If little qs are confusing then get rid of them. Just have more big Qs.
1st round of womens 1500 had top 6 in each heat plus next 6 fastest times advance . They could become top 8 in each heat.
Who comes up with this? I’d had heard no one say ‘hey we need to have a losers bracket’ ?
Or is the plan to make the first round not as much a joke? So only top 4 auto advance and we’ll have more people in the extra round?
What am I missing? Explain the positives of this or how it’s necessary?
The only positives for World Athletics I can think of is its a way to prevent stars from bombing out of an early heat. And also adds more races to fill the schedule/tv window.
I can understand why some athletes would want this. There have been many instances (esp in the hurdles) where top competitors end up getting eliminated in the 1st round for some catastrophic reason.
The hurdles is the only event like this.I’ve never seen a prominent athlete eliminated in first round of 100 (except for Shacarri at USAs)
Repechage doesn't apply to the 100m due to the preliminary rounds. We did just very recently see a defending world champ in an applicable distance eliminated in the 1st round of both USAs and WCs.
I would just prefer they go back to having more heats in the qualifying rounds of the distance events, like they did 30-40 years ago, with fewer qualifiers in the semis and finals. It wasn't unusual to see 5-6 heats in the first round of the 1500 with 8-10 runners in each and only 9-10 runners in the final. Now they are shoving 15+ runners in each of only 3 heats. Fewer bodies, fewer falls - more Q's, fewer q's. Enough of this advancing runners out of the heats because they tripped, mainly because there were just too many runners packed in the race.
I would also love to see qualifying heats in the 10,000m restored - the 5000/10000 double should be more difficult. It would get some extra bodies off the track, too.
Hassan tripped and fell during the last lap of the 1st Rnd of the 1500m during the Olympics last year. The question is would she have just bagged it right there or get up like she did and win the heat? That was a pretty remarkable comeback.
The marathon 'auto' standard is now 2:09:40 and 2:28:00. Yet the quota says 100 athletes. Which is it?? There won't be 100 men and 100 women who run under 2:09:40/2:28:00. To be ranked in top 100 when limiting to only 3 per country you only need be a consistent 2:13/2:14 guy or 2:32/2:33 woman. If you need to have the 2:09:40 standard then a guy like Cam Levins, who ended up being 4th this year, wouldn't have even qualified since he just had a 2:10 to get him into the race this year. There were only 40 women who started the marathon in Eugene, it looked like a tiny field of athletes for a marathon road race. There shouldn't be such an emphasis to limit the field size of the marathon.
You missed the bit where it says WA's aim is to have the fields for all events be 50% filled by auto qualifiers with the remaining 50% qualifying by World Rankings positions. That's the reason for the toughening up of the entry standards.
So basically just ignore the automatic standards, and it's 99% based on world ranking. Anyone who has the standard would surely be ranked high enough unless they don't race very often meaning they don't have enough performances to get a ranking.
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