Tim Cheruiyot finished 4th at the Kenyan trials in 2021, but they sent him to Tokyo anyway and he came back with a silver medal. Imagine if we could’ve sent Fisher to Budapest in 2023 instead of forcing him to race USAs on an injury. Considering he ran 7:25 later in the summer and was coming off 4th and 6th the previous year, it’s likely he would’ve medaled. If nothing else, he certainly would’ve been more competitive than anyone else we sent.
Top 2 finishers at USAs + a discretionary spot should be seriously considered. You can still take the top 3 under this model, but at least there’s a bit of a safety net for proven championship contenders if they pick up a small injury, get sick, etc. I don’t understand why people are so enamored with the current system when it doesn’t really have anything going for it beyond its simplicity.
Based on all the downvotes, it’s probably going to take someone like Hocker or Fisher tripping and not making the team for people to change their minds on this.
Absolutely not. Under no circumstances should the third athlete be “judged” in to a spot. That is what third world countries do. If the athlete can’t perform on a given qualifying day (US championships) it is just as likely they won’t perform at the world championships.
What if it's not a performance issue? Suppose Sydney is competing for a spot in the 400H and a competitor hits a hurdle and veers in her causing her to fall.
Dump the small time mickey mouse $Million orgs WA, DL, USATF, NACAU, AAU, NCAATF, FloTtrack, etc. Cancel WC, DL Final, OT, NCAA Champs, Euro Champs, Asian Champs, Commonwealth, and small piss ant $Milllion meets. We should have ONE Hollywood NBC $BILLION Olympic Champs in September at LAX same venue with 1,000s of BILLIONAIRE OLIGARCHS chipping into the YEARLY Olympic Games Metropolis. Same locateion each year at LAX. Take the savings and give us hefty appearance fees, hotel rooms, prize money, TV Royalty stream for life. Shohei salaries.
Every year the US leaves some of its best people off the roster. People like Hoey, Cunningham, Kovacs, Kelati, Wiley, Kessler, Weyment, etc. this year. The most glaring example of the past was defending world champion Dan O'Brien in the decathlon; he went on to set the world record shortly after failing to make the Olympic team.
It's time to adjust the way we choose our teams. While the "top-3 go and the rest go home" format is exciting, it always means the US sends less than its best team.
It is time for a hybrid format similar to the Q and q system we have for advancement to finals.
A lot of people love the excitement of the current system. Let's keep it but reduce it: top-2 are automatic qualifiers "Qs".
The third spot should go to the person judged to be the best non-qualifier "q". In order to keep it objective rather than subjective, a system can be devised that creates a score for each athlete, similar to the system once used by the Bowl Championship Series to rank teams in college football. Things like World Rank, Season Best, Head-to-Head Record, etc., can be converted to points and the athlete with the highest point total gets the third spot.
Someone like Dan O'Brien would certainly have been the "at-large" bid for Team USA and probably would have won gold for us.
Absolutely not. For all it's flaws, the US championship system is one of the best things we have.
Every year I hear about enormous controversy from Australia, Ethiopia, UK, and Kenya as a result of corrupt officials and poor decision making, and I thank our lucky stars that we don't have to deal with that.
Remember the Abbey Caldwell situation? Or basically any one Ethiopia's 5k -> marathon selections from the past half-decade? Or the UK athletics selection committee's decisions from basically any year? So happy that isn't an issue here. We're just broke lol.
Tim Cheruiyot finished 4th at the Kenyan trials in 2021, but they sent him to Tokyo anyway and he came back with a silver medal. Imagine if we could’ve sent Fisher to Budapest in 2023 instead of forcing him to race USAs on an injury. Considering he ran 7:25 later in the summer and was coming off 4th and 6th the previous year, it’s likely he would’ve medaled. If nothing else, he certainly would’ve been more competitive than anyone else we sent.
Top 2 finishers at USAs + a discretionary spot should be seriously considered. You can still take the top 3 under this model, but at least there’s a bit of a safety net for proven championship contenders if they pick up a small injury, get sick, etc. I don’t understand why people are so enamored with the current system when it doesn’t really have anything going for it beyond its simplicity.
Based on all the downvotes, it’s probably going to take someone like Hocker or Fisher tripping and not making the team for people to change their minds on this.
Mu tripped last year at trials before everyone realized there was something seriously wrong going on, but pretty much everyone on this board still felt like the trials system was the best thing we have.
Every year the US leaves some of its best people off the roster. People like Hoey, Cunningham, Kovacs, Kelati, Wiley, Kessler, Weyment, etc. this year. The most glaring example of the past was defending world champion Dan O'Brien in the decathlon; he went on to set the world record shortly after failing to make the Olympic team.
It's time to adjust the way we choose our teams. While the "top-3 go and the rest go home" format is exciting, it always means the US sends less than its best team.
It is time for a hybrid format similar to the Q and q system we have for advancement to finals.
A lot of people love the excitement of the current system. Let's keep it but reduce it: top-2 are automatic qualifiers "Qs".
The third spot should go to the person judged to be the best non-qualifier "q". In order to keep it objective rather than subjective, a system can be devised that creates a score for each athlete, similar to the system once used by the Bowl Championship Series to rank teams in college football. Things like World Rank, Season Best, Head-to-Head Record, etc., can be converted to points and the athlete with the highest point total gets the third spot.
Someone like Dan O'Brien would certainly have been the "at-large" bid for Team USA and probably would have won gold for us.
Absolutely not. Under no circumstances should the third athlete be “judged” in to a spot. That is what third world countries do. If the athlete can’t perform on a given qualifying day (US championships) it is just as likely they won’t perform at the world championships.
What if it's not a performance issue? Suppose Sydney is competing for a spot in the 400H and a competitor hits a hurdle and veers in her causing her to fall.
Tim Cheruiyot finished 4th at the Kenyan trials in 2021, but they sent him to Tokyo anyway and he came back with a silver medal. Imagine if we could’ve sent Fisher to Budapest in 2023 instead of forcing him to race USAs on an injury. Considering he ran 7:25 later in the summer and was coming off 4th and 6th the previous year, it’s likely he would’ve medaled. If nothing else, he certainly would’ve been more competitive than anyone else we sent.
Top 2 finishers at USAs + a discretionary spot should be seriously considered. You can still take the top 3 under this model, but at least there’s a bit of a safety net for proven championship contenders if they pick up a small injury, get sick, etc. I don’t understand why people are so enamored with the current system when it doesn’t really have anything going for it beyond its simplicity.
Based on all the downvotes, it’s probably going to take someone like Hocker or Fisher tripping and not making the team for people to change their minds on this.
Mu tripped last year at trials before everyone realized there was something seriously wrong going on, but pretty much everyone on this board still felt like the trials system was the best thing we have.
That’s because she and her coach are almost universally disliked here. Go back to that thread and you’ll see people celebrating her not making the team. The reaction would be completely different for a letsrun favorite like Fisher. We’d be reading a “We need to talk about the US trials system” post saying the same thing OP is but with 80% upvotes.
1) It's long forgotten that profesional sports only thrive as entertainment for fans. Top 3 and you go makes it a GREAT meet for fans. I want WA to say the US can send the top 3 if regardless if they have the standard. If you do top 2 and then some BS,it's ruined the meet from a spectating standpoint. By the OP's logic, we might as well just get rid of Worlds and hand out the medals to the 3 most deserving people. Or do you want us to still hold worlds but the bronze is selected by committee? What a joke.
2) I don't want the politics of picking 3rd.
Plus the OP makes the argument against a committee unknowingly in his or her post. Many of the people he wants on the team I dson't think should go.
OP wrote:
Every year the US leaves some of its best people off the roster. People like Hoey, Cunningham, Kovacs, Kelati, Wiley, Kessler, Weyment, etc. this year.
Please tell me how Kessler is one of the best people being left offf the roster? He's done nothing to indicate to me he's better than Strand. I'm going with the up and coming college kid with a sick kick over someone who just got destroyed the in DL.
Wiley? Yes heading into USAs, she looked like the clear US #1. Did you see how she ran yesterday in the DL? She was dead last.
Wayment has run 6 steeples this year and hasn't finsihed higher than 5th in any of them. She's broken 9:15 in just 2 of them.In her last 3 steeples, she's run 9:25,, 9:17, and 9:26. No thanks.
Kelati - I'm fine with her being left off. She had two chances to be top 3 and couldn't do it. THis wasn't some hurdles race where she got a bad start. She has no kick.
Cunningham - no. The 110 is so high quality in the US the best way is just let the race decide it. Anyone of them could win gold. RIde the hot hand.
Hoey? Yes I"d like hiim on the team. But you are going to have kick the Olympic 4th placer and American record holder in Hoppel off for him? No thanks.
Kovacs ? Yes he got Olympic silver. But he's 36. Is he normally better than 3rd placer Adrian Piperi? Yes. But Piperi has PBd 3 times this year including at USAs. He's a former 2-time NCAA champ who won world indoor bronze.
Right, making up who you think is best has not caused issues for other countries, just look at Australia and Uk where athletes took their federations to court to attempt to compete.
If an athlete wants it then they and their coach make damn sure they are ready for the trials, it’s in the calendar.
next you will say, maybe only 1st gets the Q and the next two have qq. All maybe the top athletes have a best of three race off, or best there times to some other pointless way to satisfy you that your favourite athlete is going to the worlds or Olympics.
I'm just looking through the list of 3rd placers at USAs this year. Which one of them do you feel should give up their spot for someone they beat? I'm not seeing any logical choices.
Or fix track. Worlds and Olympics are dumb concepts when 3-5 countries dominate all the events. Why are the pinnacle events of this sport limiting 3 from a country when they could realistically qualify 5-10 athletes?
Sports like football and baseball and basketball the official league matters more than any international tournament because international events don’t comprise of the best athletes.
Football World Cup finals tournament has qualifiers from around the world. In theory it should be 46 European teams plus Argentina and Brazil because theyre probably the best 48 teams but its all about inclusivity and growing the game
In a way, the US has already done something similar to get a particular athlete on the team.
In 1968, the US held an Olympic Trials in LA that Jim Ryun missed due to injury. Top-3 were Patrick, Bair, and Liquori. This was to essentially serve as a "semi-final" Olympic Trials, with a second Trials to occur at altitude. Ryun, the world record holder at the time, was allowed to compete in the September Trials. Ryun, Liquori, and von Ruden were the top-3. Patrick and Bair were left out; Patrick had won NCAAs, won the 1st Trials, and was 4th at the 2nd Trials. There was no way the US would have left Ryun off the team; they simply found another way to get him on it.
The selection procedures of countries like Australia is not like what is proposed; all three members are selected by committee. A hybrid model would allow two to be selected based on place at the Trials but leave only one opening for selection. Significantly different from just selecting the entire team. Imagine if Sydney McLaughlin came down with a bout of food poisoning the night before the Trials final and could not compete. Are you saying you would prefer to have Shamier Little on the line in Paris instead of Sydney? Someone mentioned a hurdle getting hit by another competitor and taking out Sydney. Do you want to send our best or our luckiest?
While Dan Obrien and Jim Ryun may be great examples of why a hybrid system would work, Mu is the perfect counter example. She was destroyed by three Americans after the Trials in Gainesville, none of whom even made the finals of the Trials. Who would Mu have replaced? 3rd place finisher Juliette Whittaker, who ended up making the Olympic Final and finishing 7th. Mu would have absolutely gotten her doors blown off in the prelims in Paris.
The only way I would support a QQq system (and I am not sure if I ever would) is if there is no subjectivity to the q spot.
For me, it would have to be that the top three go, unless someone that finishes outside the top three is ranked #1 in a points system that everyone knew about and had a fair chance to score points in over a twelve month period (or something like that). I also would stipulate that person must compete in USA Nationals to prevent the #1 person from skipping the meet because their spot is sewn up.
Otherwise, the q spot is going to go to the best Nike-sponsored athlete that finished outside of the top three.
I'm not saying I love that idea, but I am a hard no on a committee.
The only way I would support a QQq system (and I am not sure if I ever would) is if there is no subjectivity to the q spot.
For me, it would have to be that the top three go, unless someone that finishes outside the top three is ranked #1 in a points system that everyone knew about and had a fair chance to score points in over a twelve month period (or something like that).
That's exactly what the OP proposed. A committee vote can be manipulated; a points system cannot. Look at the system for World Ranking. It is laid out in a very detailed manner on the WA website. Everyone knows how to score points.
Adding to the entertainment factor is... how awesome is it seeing Hoey and Nuguse on this mini redemption tour, trying to win the DL final and go to Worlds.
The DL owes the US selection system big time because it has added a true story line to the end of the regular season. I think every other country has at least 1 discretionary spot and someone capable of winning the DL final is likely already selected by the nation to go to Worlds.
This year eyes will be glued to the screen seeing if Hoey and Nuguse can pull it off. you can't manufacture drama like this with a QQq system. Everyone watching the spot benefits from competition that maters and the DL final would matter a lot more if every country had a QQQ system.
While Dan Obrien and Jim Ryun may be great examples of why a hybrid system would work, Mu is the perfect counter example. She was destroyed by three Americans after the Trials in Gainesville, none of whom even made the finals of the Trials. Who would Mu have replaced? 3rd place finisher Juliette Whittaker, who ended up making the Olympic Final and finishing 7th. Mu would have absolutely gotten her doors blown off in the prelims in Paris.
How can you be so sure? Mu is still struggling mentally with what happened at the Trials a year later. Do you really think a meaningless race just a few weeks after the Trials while Mu was devastated because of her mishap is indicative of what she might have been capable of in an alternate timeline where, similar to Keely this year, she didn't have to run in the Trials and got to compete in Paris? I don't.
Re: Whittaker, she disclosed three months ago that she had been struggling with depression for a long time. Post-Olympic depression, aka "the Olympic blues", is something that is well-documented and experienced by many Olympic athletes. Is it possible that the Olympic blues exacerbated her depression?