The rule is a bad rule. We have been saying for over a year that ranking allotments should be done on a per country basis. If a country had 3 qualifiers in an event they can select any three people they want. Then national championships would mean something, selection races would be guaranteed to mean something.
The ranking system should be set up so that the Kenyan qualifying race guarantees you get enough points if you are in top 3. It is a MAJOR race. Someone top 3 at it should get enough points for Worlds, but turns out the Kenyan qualifying race even gets less points than the Kenyan nationals which were a few weeks ago which are given the same amount of points as the Jamaican 10k nationals.
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Every rule that WA puts in place should be put through a simple test.
1) Does this make sense in the real world?
2) Does it think of the fans?
The system should ensure that the top 3 at the Kenyan Trails in a distance race should automatically qualify for Worlds. Same for US Trials, Olympic Marathon Trials etc.
Similarly, any DQ decision at Worlds should have to be decided in 3 minutes for TV. Instead races will be decided hours after they go off the air. Terrible for fans.
If you could guarantee the top three at every country’s national meet would go, then maybe. But historically many countries have come up with some nonsense like having an “A+ standard,” only selecting people they “think can potentially finish in the top eight,” (absolutely no room for politics there, eyeroll), or saying something like the national champ goes and then the federation chooses the other two based on… whatever.
Honestly, the system was fine before the weirdness with the world ranking. Track is an individual sport. Individuals qualify. The three-per-country limit is tough on some nations, but necessary to keep the event from being completely overrun by a few countries. No need to complicate things.
The Ethiopians had their trials at Hengelo, The Netherlands. Athletics Kenya doesn't plan properly and their managers neither. Also Kenyans didn't test some upcoming athletes (which finished top 3 at the trials) for doping. Pitty for the Kenyans, chances for other athletes...
That's a fair point. On the other side, should we really be encouraging countries to host their national championships in a country thousands of miles away? An altitude conversion would be OK in my opinion, as long as it was conservative, unlike the extremely generous NCAA formula.
The rule is a bad rule. We have been saying for over a year that ranking allotments should be done on a per country basis. If a country had 3 qualifiers in an event they can select any three people they want. Then national championships would mean something, selection races would be guaranteed to mean something.
The ranking system should be set up so that the Kenyan qualifying race guarantees you get enough points if you are in top 3. It is a MAJOR race. Someone top 3 at it should get enough points for Worlds, but turns out the Kenyan qualifying race even gets less points than the Kenyan nationals which were a few weeks ago which are given the same amount of points as the Jamaican 10k nationals.
***
Every rule that WA puts in place should be put through a simple test.
1) Does this make sense in the real world?
2) Does it think of the fans?
The system should ensure that the top 3 at the Kenyan Trails in a distance race should automatically qualify for Worlds. Same for US Trials, Olympic Marathon Trials etc.
Similarly, any DQ decision at Worlds should have to be decided in 3 minutes for TV. Instead races will be decided hours after they go off the air. Terrible for fans.
Would you support Jonathan Davis making the world team? He finished 2nd in our national qualifier and beat multiple athletes with the standard. If Kandie makes it so should Davis, no?
100% support him going. US has more than 3 qualifiers in 1500 it should be able to use a trials system to pick its top 3.
What about the fans? What about the fact that the World Championships are suppose to feature the greatest athletes in the world. When this sort of thing happens, i feel cheated. And, cheated by stupidity! It would be so easy to set up a panel that looks at the situation a coupe of weeks before the Games start and issue "wild cards" to outstanding athletes who - for whatever reason - NEED to be at the Games ( for the fans) but haven' t been picked or haven't got qualifying times or whatever.
Would you support Jonathan Davis making the world team? He finished 2nd in our national qualifier and beat multiple athletes with the standard. If Kandie makes it so should Davis, no?
100% support him going. US has more than 3 qualifiers in 1500 it should be able to use a trials system to pick its top 3.
I was watching the US 1500 with my child, also a college 1500 runner. OMG, Jonathan Davis! Out of nowhere….finishes 2nd, he’s going to the world championships….no wait, he hasn’t run “fast enough” and his ranking is too low….not enough points….he’s not going…. Well, that’s deflating, a gut punch to the underdog story. The guy who finished 6th is going? Wtf?? Totally runs counter to your ethos of “where your dreams become reality.” If you finish 2nd at USAs, then you ran fast enough when it counted to qualify…..
100% support him going. US has more than 3 qualifiers in 1500 it should be able to use a trials system to pick its top 3.
I was watching the US 1500 with my child, also a college 1500 runner. OMG, Jonathan Davis! Out of nowhere….finishes 2nd, he’s going to the world championships….no wait, he hasn’t run “fast enough” and his ranking is too low….not enough points….he’s not going…. Well, that’s deflating, a gut punch to the underdog story. The guy who finished 6th is going? Wtf?? Totally runs counter to your ethos of “where your dreams become reality.” If you finish 2nd at USAs, then you ran fast enough when it counted to qualify…..
The US problem is different. There are no good 1500m runners this year.
The fastest runner has only run 3:34.81
That would not rank #1 in Luxembourg (pop 0.6 million), New Zealand (pop 5.1 million), Norway (pop 5.4 million), Belgium (pop 11.6 million), Canada…
That being said, I do agree that the 1500m standard is very tough. So you need to go to the joke point system to fill the field.
No, top 3 in Finland, Greece or Monaco… should not go to world championship. Giving special privilege to a couple of countries also does not make sense.
We also don’t really need the joke point system. After automatic, there should simply be a next best until field is full (based on declared athletes given by countries).
Reality is Kandie did not get standard. It would have been easy for him to get it, but he did not bother. Adding altitude conversion would simply lead to other problems.
What do you do with a Lobalu situation? That is just insane. You simply can’t plan for that. Who goes from 7:49 to 7:29? His breakthrough simply came one week too late.
Tell me what problem would arise from doing an altitude conversion of 20 seconds at 5,000 feet and then a second or two for each additional 1,000 feet. The answer? No problem.
The US problem is different. There are no good 1500m runners this year.
The fastest runner has only run 3:34.81
That would not rank #1 in Luxembourg (pop 0.6 million), New Zealand (pop 5.1 million), Norway (pop 5.4 million), Belgium (pop 11.6 million), Canada…
That being said, I do agree that the 1500m standard is very tough. So you need to go to the joke point system to fill the field.
No, top 3 in Finland, Greece or Monaco… should not go to world championship. Giving special privilege to a couple of countries also does not make sense.
We also don’t really need the joke point system. After automatic, there should simply be a next best until field is full (based on declared athletes given by countries).
Reality is Kandie did not get standard. It would have been easy for him to get it, but he did not bother. Adding altitude conversion would simply lead to other problems.
What do you do with a Lobalu situation? That is just insane. You simply can’t plan for that. Who goes from 7:49 to 7:29? His breakthrough simply came one week too late.
I don’t agree with this. There are many examples of where the allotment of spots is based on the league, conference, division, nation’s historical performance in an event. You could certainly argue some nations have even earned more than 3 spots. Failure to perform over time as group would cost spots. In that context, if the US default selection process is top three finishers at nationals, the top 3 should go, even is one or more has not met some arbitrary standard or world ranking. This would not apply to the top 3 from Greece. Some countries will have earned no qualifiers at all, in which case their athletes can on get in through the time standard or ranking.
As for Lobalu and Kandie, absolutely they should qualify. Kandie both for finishing top 3 from a nation that has historically earned 3 or more spots in his event and because the time standard needs to account for reasonable conversions for altitude, surface (of course a road performance should count) and even a distance conversion. This latter situation would apply to Lobalu. You should be able to make it in even if the qualifying performance happens the day before the wc are set to start.
Kenya should be able to send whatever 3 people it wants in the 10,000m to Worlds. Allotment spots should be earned by country.
Why only 3? This mini-olympics stuff is played out to death. No country's honor is at stake.
Imagine if the world table tennis championships allowed only 3 Chinese players. What kind of "championship" is that? If Kenya has 15 of the world's top 20, they should all get in.
I would have some sympathy with the argument that the 10,000 metres is a special case as you can’t expect the athletes to run 6 events and still perform well in the championships as compared to the 1500 or any sprints where athletes could easily compete in 10 or more events to go chasing the standard without significant impact on their prospects in the major events.
The US problem is different. There are no good 1500m runners this year.
The fastest runner has only run 3:34.81
That would not rank #1 in Luxembourg (pop 0.6 million), New Zealand (pop 5.1 million), Norway (pop 5.4 million), Belgium (pop 11.6 million), Canada…
That being said, I do agree that the 1500m standard is very tough. So you need to go to the joke point system to fill the field.
No, top 3 in Finland, Greece or Monaco… should not go to world championship. Giving special privilege to a couple of countries also does not make sense.
We also don’t really need the joke point system. After automatic, there should simply be a next best until field is full (based on declared athletes given by countries).
Reality is Kandie did not get standard. It would have been easy for him to get it, but he did not bother. Adding altitude conversion would simply lead to other problems.
What do you do with a Lobalu situation? That is just insane. You simply can’t plan for that. Who goes from 7:49 to 7:29? His breakthrough simply came one week too late.
I don’t agree with this. There are many examples of where the allotment of spots is based on the league, conference, division, nation’s historical performance in an event. You could certainly argue some nations have even earned more than 3 spots. Failure to perform over time as group would cost spots. In that context, if the US default selection process is top three finishers at nationals, the top 3 should go, even is one or more has not met some arbitrary standard or world ranking. This would not apply to the top 3 from Greece. Some countries will have earned no qualifiers at all, in which case their athletes can on get in through the time standard or ranking.
As for Lobalu and Kandie, absolutely they should qualify. Kandie both for finishing top 3 from a nation that has historically earned 3 or more spots in his event and because the time standard needs to account for reasonable conversions for altitude, surface (of course a road performance should count) and even a distance conversion. This latter situation would apply to Lobalu. You should be able to make it in even if the qualifying performance happens the day before the wc are set to start.
Ok, completely do away with time standards for countries that have earned spots.
How would this work? If you have 10 of the top 16 times in prior year in an event, you get 5 spots. 8 of the top 16, you get 4 spots, 6 of the top 16, you get 3 spots, 4 of the top 16, you get 2 spots. No standard needed. When you only have 2 spots, the third would need standard.
The auto qualified are excluded from this calculation, so you could actually have 6 athletes in an event.
That would allow the US to have 5 (or 6) guys in the 200m and this avoid having lower tier US sprinters go become national champions in Jamaica or Liberia.
This year, the US would have (excluding runners with byes):
4 spots in the 100m
5 spots in the 200m
4 spots in the 400m
0 spots in the 800m (runners would need standard)
0 spots in the 1500m
0 spots in the 5000m
0 spots in the 10000m
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Ethiopia would have 2 spots at 5000m (the 3rd would need standard)
Kenya and Ethiopia would have 2 spots each at 10000m
it would not change things very much for Ethiopia and Kenya. The Kandie thing is an odd ball situation. Usually, the chosen athlete would also have standard.
It would help the US in the sprints. Not because we want to enter someone who does not have standard, but because we would get more spots.