How many other countries REJECTING invitations to Olympics??? Nice one New Zealand

Breakfast In Bed wrote:

The problem is probably the cost for NZA to send the extra athletes, the airfare, the lodging, shipping needed gear and materials. They're not loaded with cash like the US, UK and other power nations in athletics. The big countries will send whoever qualifies, at any cost. With NZA and their more limited resources, the cost to send an extra athlete or two weighs more heavily on them, so you see this more often, where they have qualified athletes but they decide not to send them.

New Zealand is rich as all get out and loaded with tourism dollars. They are so rich they have some of the most selective immigration criteria in the world. They absolutely can afford to send any athlete who qualifies to Japan. They probably have more freaking businessmen in Japan right now than they have athletes they'd have to send.

This is freaking ridiculous and disgraceful.

Australia's swimming qualifying standards are the hardest in the world and are based on the time it took to reach the final at the most recent World Championships (top 8). Meanwhile the athletics standards are quite lax with a lot of people only qualifying via points because if they had anything like the swimming standards the team would be tiny.

It’s very clear from Willis’ posts that he was informed well before the cut off date that he ONLY had to be ranked in the top 45 to be selected. Hence he and his managements heavy lobbying to get a meet he ran in 3 weeks earlier upgraded to ensure he was in the 45th position. This was only after his poor performances in Europe didn’t go to plan.

Every athlete needs to be held accountable to the same criteria and selections need to be clear and transparent.

Idiot the Olympics are about participation. The best from EVERY country.

Are they still sending their rugby team?

No. A full team needs to be sent by first world countries, even if all some athletes have done is barely hit the olympic standard. Even if NZ just gave the athletes plane tickets and officially entered them if they had no hopes of performing, that'd be something.

Kiwisusetofly wrote:

It’s very clear from Willis’ posts that he was informed well before the cut off date that he ONLY had to be ranked in the top 45 to be selected. Hence he and his managements heavy lobbying to get a meet he ran in 3 weeks earlier upgraded to ensure he was in the 45th position. This was only after his poor performances in Europe didn’t go to plan.

Every athlete needs to be held accountable to the same criteria and selections need to be clear and transparent.

If this is the case then the selection policy is even more of a confusing and farcical. Because there is not a single clause that allows for either a "new" or "returning" athlete to be selected at just 45th in the world. So really at 45th place he doesn't fit any criteria apart from WA's and that's what a number of other younger athletes did and were overlooked.

I understand how you would think that given the whole situation including the upgrading of the Tennessee meet that gave him points to be 45th, but I think that was more of an WA procedural thing (because unless he was 45th or better it doesn't matter if the NZOC thinks he's capable of winning, WA would not accept the nomination. From the NZOC side the only way he gets in is under the "capable of top 16" clause which again is such an ambiguously stupid clause on so many levels - it's a clause that is dictating solely by emotion/truth and not fact and never can be. There is no way to know, for example, that other athletes the NZOC is leaving behind couldn't do what Peter Snell did (and I'm using him as an example because he was mentioned by someone else) and perform way above their currently perceived level, maybe make a final and kickstart a great career.

So in effect the policy that is there to encourage potential, actually is there do do the opposite which is give a guy who has had a fantastic, HoF career, essentially a "farewell tour" charity spot and basically demotivate a clutch of younger athletes whose best years could be started by a deserved (according to the world body) spot at the games.

Justice4pearce wrote:

High hopes wrote:

UK Athletics is just as bad. Mark Pearce ran a steeple PB this year, won the British trials, and qualified via rankings so received an invite from WA. UK Athletics rejected the invite because they thought he didn't have potential - he's 25...

A UK race walker broke the 50k British record this year and UKA also turned down his invitation.

It's a joke. Anyone who qualifies should be able to go. National governing bodies are supposed to be looking out for their athletes, not just focussing on medals and finals.

Ukathletics are a bunch of wankers

Agree, and this is where there is zero accountancy for the fact some events are considerably harder than others. With Pearce they clearly look at a ranking number, a time and say "nope not good enough", however I bet if you compared his performance with others that made the team on ranking, comparatively his best performance is equally as good. An 8.24 steeplechaser is unlikely to make the final running 8.24 - but an 8.06 long jumper would have made the final in Rio, London, Beijing and would have finished 7th in the final of all those 3 games. And in case you didn't guess why I used those events and those performances, an 8.24 3000m steeplechase is basically the same comparative points score as an 8.06 Long jump.

DanM wrote:

The Olympics should invite 5000 athletes, weighted according to the percentage of total global population for each country.

China 895, India 875, United States 211, Indonesia 173, Pakistan 144, Brazil 136, Nigeria 135..........New Zealand 3.

NZ won like 16 medals at the last Olympics and more medals in T&F field than China and India combined

Tico_Runner wrote:

Here in the developing world of Costa Rica, our Olympic Committee is thrilled to send anyone who qualifies. We are immensely proud, for example, of Gerald Drummond, ranked 36th in the 400-m hurdles, and gave him a full-page spread in the national paper as a send-off to Tokyo. Perhaps it is our humility compared to the likes of the UK or NZ.

+1

NZfarceletics wrote:

Right, so now someone with far more nous re finances has debunked your absolute speculative myth about funding, can you please answer why a national body would send the lowest ranked football/Soccer team to the World Cup when they with probably get pumped harder than a pig offal burrito in Eugene?

Oh...development? Something to aspire to? Potential to build on performances? Perhaps that money is an investment?

Do you work for the NZOC?

I doubt NZOC has anything to do with the soccer federation sending a team to its World Cup. I doubt it (NZOC) is picking up the tab for that trip.

How come no one has mentioned that no nation should have to pay money to send their athletes to the Olympics? The Games offer NO PRIZE MONEY yet take in normally over a billion in ticket sales and TV contracts. Housing and food should be free along with providing stipends for each athlete to attend to cover all or most of travel cost. Instead the IOC poobahs stay in 5 star hotels eating lobster, premium steaks and caviar. USOC has all this fundraising for the team and then nearly half of it goes to hosting corporate poobahs at the Games.

They should move to Australia, everything is ten times better there than NZ.

khcglhc wrote:

khcglhc wrote:

What’s with all these standards and exclusions.

Nobody should be left out of the Olympics, no matter their sex, religion, sexual preference, nationality, age or otherwise.

It’s the definition of discrimination

This exclusion system is not healthy

…I forgot to add

…and ability

Yes, my horse identifies deeply as a human being. He would be a (horse)shoo-in in the 3000m steeplechase, whether the men's or women's race. Let him or her race! Don't discriminate!

SprintDoc wrote:

How come no one has mentioned that no nation should have to pay money to send their athletes to the Olympics? The Games offer NO PRIZE MONEY yet take in normally over a billion in ticket sales and TV contracts. Housing and food should be free along with providing stipends for each athlete to attend to cover all or most of travel cost. Instead the IOC poobahs stay in 5 star hotels eating lobster, premium steaks and caviar. USOC has all this fundraising for the team and then nearly half of it goes to hosting corporate poobahs at the Games.

This is a great point.

dullard wrote:

Australia's swimming qualifying standards are the hardest in the world and are based on the time it took to reach the final at the most recent World Championships (top 8). Meanwhile the athletics standards are quite lax with a lot of people only qualifying via points because if they had anything like the swimming standards the team would be tiny.

Not sure, but this could make sense if you are trying to protect a superstar that has an off day at trials. If you are going to field a full team anyway, maybe protecting you historically best performer could make sense.

NZ is indefensible. Especially considering Snell and Willis.

How many invited athletes are the United States not sending?

DanM wrote:

The Olympics should invite 5000 athletes, weighted according to the percentage of total global population for each country.

China 895, India 875, United States 211, Indonesia 173, Pakistan 144, Brazil 136, Nigeria 135..........New Zealand 3.

That would be an inappropriate way to select participants.

Lots of Chinese and Indian athletes would be part of the games and would absolutely reduce the standard of the games and destroy the core value of higher, faster, farther.

Excellent proposal and may be needed to sustain the current Olympic movement. Clearly, countries like Canada, Sweden, NZ and Australia can afford to send all athletes that qualify, but they choose not to. There may be other countries that legitimately claim not to be able to afford to send their qualified athletes. The popularity of the OG to sponsors, advertisers TV networks and fans is primarily based upon global excellence. The forced non-participation of qualified athletes threatens this construct. Of course, the voluntary withdrawal of prominent qualified athletes from these OG in basketball, tennis and golf further exacerbates this issue.