Aussie female Marathon selection fiasco

This is maddening on so many levels. 6 athletes qualify & you take 1,2, & 5. Athlete 3 is 7-1 H2H against Athlete 5. Take the bureaucracy out of it. If you can't then you need a Trials system. As mentioned very early in the thread, name Gold Coast your Olympic Trials. Top-3 across the line make the team.

This kind of stuff happens all the time, across all of the different sports. One major reason for it is funding. A lot of Olympic sports rely on taxpayer dollars & you might pick a younger athlete to go to the Olympics in the hope that they have a decent result & an argument can be made for continued or additional funding for the next Games since you have a young athlete that will be ready to contend in 4 years. But Australia nixed a 45 year old for a 36 year old. You could've put Batt-Doyle on the team but you didn't (you missed on this Rojo -- that's the person you pick on potential). So it just reads as Stenson having some sort of inside edge. What a mess.

I think everyone is giving Sinead a free pass as she ran 2:21 in December 2022. Since that race here are her results: In 2023 32:48 for 10k 1:09:29 for a half and the last race that she has run in past 10 months is in September 2023 she ran a 2:31 marathon. She has no results listed on her IAAF page since then. No sign of current fitness except a bunch of strava workouts she has posted. Seems strange AA hasn't said confirm your fitness before we make a decision.

Whilst Goldy is the logical course, the timing doesnt really work. You cant really select in July for an August marathon. (Unless you plan to select 13 months before raceday)

Problem is we dont really have any meaningful early Autumn races, and I dont think a stand alone race makes sense for a field size of like Aus would have.

they have. that’s why the team hasn’t been officially announced.

she’s racing Sunday. no idea what they expect from her though.

So the question is why and how did someone release the team? What if Lisa showed up and beat her? Hmm I don't think it will matter what Sinead runs.

Selection aside. Consider Weightman’s statement and the alleged bias and poor governance it suggests from AA. None of which was addressed in their statement. How can you win your appeal and it make absolutely no difference in the process? What is the point of having this process in place? Their reluctance to accept the feedback from the NST highlights the bias/poor governance and lack of transparency in place further fuelling the notion that the conflicts at play were influential. Joke of an organisation

‘Despite winning an appeal at the National Sports Tribunal (the NST) against my non-nomination for the women’s marathon team, the NST returned the nomination decision to AA for re-determination. The NST was critical of AA’s handling of this nomination decision including its failure to properly understand or apply its own nomination criteria.
Notwithstanding the NST’s recommendation for AA to convene a new and independent selection committee to re-determine the matter (i.e. to avoid the risk of potential bias), AA’s original selection committee simply re-affirmed its original decision.’

‘Much of the dispute before the NST involved an interpretation of AA’s own nomination criteria for the marathon. The nomination criteria was so unclear and ambiguous that the NST observed that AA did not even properly understand how to interpret or apply it.’

‘AA failed to provide its reasons for forming this belief until the actual appeal to the NST and, even then, failed to provide its reasons in the correct evidentiary form. The NST was critical of AA’s conduct and afforded it an opportunity to present its evidence in the correct written form: AA failed to do so.’

‘It gets worse. AA’s Head of Integrity sent AA’s written submissions to the NST which included information supporting AA’s reasons for my non-nomination. However, this information was incorrect and, ironically, would have supported my claims for nomination. Upon realising his error the Head of Integrity sent an updated and corrected version of AA’s submissions to the NST outside of the agreed deadline, without disclosing details of the changes.
The NST was again critical of AA’s conduct and noted that the revised submissions further indicated AA’s “uncertainty or lack of clarity in respect of (its) real reasons” for not nominating me.
As noted, the NST upheld my appeal and referred the decision back to AA with a recommendation that a newly convened Selection Committee should make a fresh nomination decision taking into account all of the submissions made by the parties and that upon accepting this responsibility that it “must observe the principles of natural justice”.
AA doubled down in its refusal of my nomination to the AOC.’

It’s just for proof of fitness not a showdown for a place on the team.
If they decide that Sinead isn’t up for it then whoever’s next in line gets to go.
Maybe that’s Lisa, maybe it isn’t.

What gets me is the NST (an independent government tribunal) recommendation is ignored by a body that gets most of its income from government funding. How can a sporting body that gets so much public funding just ignore that sort of a recommendation and assume that it won't impact on their perceived integrity?

I live in Sydney. This has been a mess. Unfortunately, nobody has a definitive claim. I do think that Jess is a reasonable choice, but it's really hard to decide whom to leave off the team amongst Jess, Sinead, Gen, and Lisa.

I think Lisa was the hardest to argue for in terms of leaving off the team given that she has a top 3 time, is extremely consistent, has continued to run well recently, and her only potential "blemish" was losing to some of the others in running a still impressive 2:24 when she had Covid.

Sinead hasn't run a race that indicates that she deserves to be on the team since 2022, but that race makes it hard not to choose her. She did run the fastest run of all time for an Aussie woman within the selection window. Still, the only marathon since then was quite mediocre.

Jess ran well at Commonwealth to win, and I suspect this is why she was chosen, but looking at the field, it's quite hard to call this a championship win.

Regardless, I honestly might leave off Gen. She's run 2 marathons and 1 was good, coming in perfect conditions on a perfect course. If you put all 4 of these head to head on a tougher course in hotter conditions, I think Gen has the biggest question mark regarding her ability to perform well. But, leaving her off seems very unfair when she has the best recent time.

Regarding the others, Izzy will probably get to go for the 5000, so it's fine for her to be left off. And Elzy is clearly the 6th choice, so no issues for her not to be chosen.

This situation has been extremely ugly. No matter what, someone from these 4 who probably deserves to be on the team was left off. However, I think Lisa was probably the most easily defendable choice in terms of who to include, and leaving her off makes very little sense.

I keep seeing this idea of using Goldie as the trials, but it's quite close to the Olympics and holding it then would yield a team that isn't ready to compete come August. It would only work if you selected based on Goldie 2023, but that's too far out. Would probably need to be a January to March race, but I'm not sure there's a good candidate for that at the moment. And, it does admittedly feel a bit silly to organise a separate Trials event with 6 runners in it.

As much as I would also say that Sinead's 2:31 isn't a great performance, it's not as bad as it sounds. Sydney isn't a particularly fast course, and the weather was terrible that day. Temps broke 30 C / upper 80s F. Women's race was won by Betsy Saina in 2:26 high. 2 of her 3 marathons closest to this were 2:21:40(6 months prior) and 2:19:17 (6 months later), both in Tokyo. I think we have to assume that Sinead was at least in 2:26 shape when she ran Sydney?

Anyone know what 'prove fitness' here means? If Sinead has a pretty average run, a couple of mins off her PB does this matter? Or is it simply to show she's not injured etc.

Side point- I don't think Izzy should be in the marathon team. But the idea that it's ok to write her off (but not Jess) because she can make it in the 5km is a bit funny. The mara is Izzy's preferred event.

I'm waiting to hear if Didyk is set to stand down, which will be the first honourable thing he's done in his coaching life.

Her coach was a selector right? Or in their pocket?

What about how she tried to assert herself onto 22 Comm Games team based off her history?

Short memory indeed

People in here slandering that Diver Sydney time must have never run a marathon before. I'd say it is still the 2nd best performance in the qualification period, accounting for race conditions. The women that beat her have recent PRs in the 2:18-2:23 range and all ran 2:27-2:31.

Maybe something in Japan? Less time difference. Or something earlier. Canberra in April? Or just a dedicated trial race like the USA.

Peter John Bosch, I believe this is more of a personal vendetta than a question of Didyk’s ability as a coach or moral compass. Crikey!

Wrong

Not to mention the fact she battled through stomach issues for most of that race. These dickheads just see 2:31 next to her name and think they know what it means. Flogs.