WA finally gets it right: no more little q's in mid-d events

For those of you who don't want slow preliminaries, why not advance top 8 but only if they hit a minimum time? In other words, you advance from your 1500 heat if you are top 4 unless you ran slower than (for instance) 3:37.

Dumb.

Why do people care if championship races are fast or slow? It just needs to be a good race. Fast times have their place, but championships are pure racing, they're about the medals and nothing else. Centro's 3:50 was a great race, so was Wightman's 3:29. Let the athletes on the day determine how it will go

I am too lazy to look up more events but in the Tokyo Olympics only the men's 5000m has the q from the second heat. There does not seem a clear pattern in the 1500m and in the 5000m women and both steeple (3 heats) the fastest heats were the first ones.

I always thought the speed skating rounds in the Olympics were pretty exciting to watch and those are time trials. Skate fast to advance or go home.

I would rather see an Olympic 1500m final with the twelve fastest runners in the world than an assortment of whoever ran a good 400m after an 1100m jog.

Sounds like you should stick to speed skating TTs then and leave the sport built around racing your competitors.

I don't think that it is a good idea. The previous format of 5 Q + 5 q for the 5000m was a good compromise and there were not a lot of bums qualifying for the finals. In the previous two champs, one q each came from the first heat and four q's from the second heat. The times were very similar, though. Woody Kincaid was 11th in his heat. Parsons qualified on time in 2022. Those of you who think that current practices in the 1500m, which are entirely dependent on which happen to be the current best athletes, is a good reason to change the rules are short-sighted. When Cheruiyot and Jakob are down or retired, the long history of the event suggests heats will be as slow as 2016 again if there are no time qualifiers.

https://worldathletics.org/results/world-athletics-championships/2019/iaaf-world-athletics-championships-doha-2019-7125365/men/5000-metres/heats/result%20

worldathletics.org

5000 Metres Result | World Athletics Championships, Oregon 2022

5000 Metres men's heats result from the World Athletics Championships, Oregon 2022 in Oregon

Open link

This is the worst ever idea because the sections are always imbalanced. The time qualifiers are meant to remedy imbalanced sections. For example in the 1500, there are 3 rounds. That means the semi final sections are based on PRELIM results where people are just running to qualify.

So if a random nobody sprints to win the prelim, he will be considered one of the fastest athletes when drawing up the sections for the final. Meanwhile Jakob or Wightman might coast in for a safe 5th or 6th (still hitting the auto qualifier in the prelim) but Jakob and Wightman would be seeded as the SLOWEST athletes when making the semi.

So what if the heats are "slow"?

what if one semi has Jakob, Tim, Wightman, Kerr, Hoare, Marcia Romo, Katir, McSweyen, Kipsang, and Nuguse? Sorry, but 4 of those guys will not qualify. and 6 weaker athletes are guaranteed a place in the final? no thanks.

I don't understand why anyone could be against this.

If you want to see cut-throat, desperate running, then let people race the people around them and see who comes across the line first.

You shouldn't have to wait around - to find out if you made the final - based on the results of someone else's race.

Turning a mid-D/distance race into a 100m sprint is not quite exciting. But, it does give less tier guys a chance to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Races are seeded based on world ranking.

And then the semis are seeded based on the results of the first round.

Also, it's just as likely that the more stacked heat runs first and sets off slowly (as has happened in the past), and then posts a slow overall time. The second heat - which is less talented - is then run more like a time-trial, and inferior runners make it through to the final as one of the "small qs" because they've essentially been paced through to a fast time.

+1

Better for television and mix zone interviews.

Lotta tension here between the claims of

"everyone is gonna sit and kick" and

"but the good athletes are going to be seeded poorly cause their times aren't good"

people are gonna push

Jonathan Gault has a column up on the changes and has run the numbers. At a Worlds, a time qualifier hadn't come from the first heat of the men's 1500 semis since 2003. It's a great change. I just wish they'd made the same change for the 800.

letsrun.com

World Athletics Scraps Time Qualifiers in Distance Races at Worlds/Olympics

LetsRun.com

Starting at the 2023 Worlds, the 1500, 5k, and steeple will only use automatic qualifiers. We love the change but wish they'd gone farther and included the 800.

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Cut-throat running comes from the people trying to get the time q, rarely from those getting the auto Q. After the first few are in, there is always a mad scramble to get that time q, which is often the most exciting part of the prelims.

If someone is in 9th or 10th, they have no motivation to try and move up to 7th. It is a wasted race for them. With the time q, at least they have something to finish for, and if they don't advance, they can say they gave it a shot.

I am fine with reducing the time q slots, but eliminating them will likely result in poor racing, not better racing.

Maybe they should seed the semi's off of world rankings.

I think maybe we'll see more semi's start slow but someone will make a move early to mid race if they feel that a kicker's race doesn't suit them.

Then the guys who can’t finish top 6 in their semi go home.