Jake Robertson not selected for New Zealand Half Marathon team

Great Dane : You seem to rubbish AthleticsNZ with some vitriol. What did the organisation do to you or any athletes in New Zealand you Coach. I would be most interested to know any details you have.

You mean like the zoom meeting they held a couple of weeks ago about Paris Olympic qualification pathways that all high performance athletes and their coaches were invited to (but hardly any attended) and the one two months before that about Budapest qualification... I believe you will find they are indeed in regular contact with all their best performers - whether or not those athletes reciprocate... And do mean Eddie Osei-Nketia?? As his dad Gus retired in the 90's...

Can someone please link where he complained about not being selected? I can't find anything on his Instagram...?

I genuinely agree with everyone saying that NZ should have selected the best possible team and that it's a mistake to leave out Jake. But there are rules for a reason and he broke them, so he shouldn't be complaining about missing out

Rojo and Wejo are twins with different PRs... I don't think they use EPO

Despite the fact that Jake & his brother are both oddballs & clearly inward looking, ANZ didn't try very hard to sound him out (remember we are a small country & everyone knows who the best athlete are, so this would not have been difficult). ANZ have always been a bunch of hopeless knobs when it comes to selcting athletes for events, small & large. I started running in the late 1970's & they were hopeless knobs back then....so, sadly, I guess nothing has changed!!

correct, they use EJO. more expensive and complex synthesis in London and Hong Kong but it gives you a little L I M I T L E S S

That’s a total deflection from what I said. Jake isn’t Zane. They live far apart and have barely trained together in years. You’re now saying the reason Jake wasn’t selected was because of these “issues”. There are plenty of top athletes around the world who aren’t perfect and probably a lot more difficult to deal with than any of these issues you refer to. That doesn’t mean they are simply overlooked for selection. ANZ seems to be making it as difficult as possible for Jake to represent the country. They should really be jumping at the opportunity to have probably one of their best long distance hopes ever represent them. If they actually took that approach they would probably find any issues between themselves and Jake would dissolve.

No the reason he didn’t get selected was he didn’t nominate. Pretty simple, same rules for everyone no preferential treatment. Same as athletes have to register on the long list, then apply for Olympics. I don’t write the process or necessarily agree with it but it is what it is. ANZ aren’t perfect but one thing they do well is get their selection policies out nice and early. Jake is 33 he probably should have worked it out by now.

I've got enough running friends in or from New Zealand that I pay a fair amount of attention to what goes on there. None of them ever have much good to say about ANZ. But in this case I don't see how they're the bad guys because they didn't select a guy for a team who never told them he wanted to be in it.

Good chance he would have pulled out injured . Moving on , what a ballsy half by Cameron Avery on the Gold Coast .

As I wrote earlier if there was regular, clear communication between ANZ and their top athletes about selection criteria, cut off dates, paperwork etc this wouldn’t have been a problem. Jake has stated that he clearly wanted to be part of the team and was hugely disappointed he wasn’t selected. This points directly to a lack of transparency and communication between ANZ and the athlete. Again, Jake is light years ahead of the next best NZ half marathon runner. I would have expected ANZ to have been very surprised when the cut off dates were fast approaching and their top athlete hadn’t entered and to have at least reached out to him.

Sorry champ you are starting to sound like a broken record! NZ cross country champs next weekend if Jake turns up and gets top 3 he is a priority selection for world cross. Speaking of NZXC in Taupo if you are going I will show up shirtless with CFR on my chest, you do the same with GD on yours and we can settle this issue in the mud of Spa Park like men.

Haha not in the country unfortunately but would have taken you up on the offer otherwise. We can agree to disagree for now.

I am still awaiting your reply to my question.

I'll be at Spa Park as well .. Hope to see GD there !!!. Not sure if I will settle in the mud !!

The American college system, along with declining birth rates, anti running policies from local government is the reason for this decline. NZ are weak in the longer distances but let's get facts straight Ghost the NZ Athletics team is far stronger than Ireland's. 4 athletes are Olympic/World outlier medal contenders Walsh, Gill, Eliza Mac and Hamish Kerr. Zoe is running 10.9s and unlike the Jamaican & Americans, she isn't juiced up to her eyeballs. Tanner is slowly improving. Really NZ's best distance runner is triathlete Hayden Wilde.

And why is it surprising that Ireland can produce good runners? (only joking; I know that wasn't the intent of your comment).

It's pretty standard for most countries the whole way through from junior-senior-vet that you declare/register an interest in specific events that require selection. If you're lucky your country won't hold it against you that you don't live there and consider you for selection - not saying that's the case here but I've got first-hand experience of being told they'd only select resident athletes.

Or grammar checkers....