I don’t think calling out Amby Burfoot like this is either necessary or appropriate. He’s a living legend and incredibly well respected. Did he insult you in some way?
??? WTF? He insulted the very foundation of our sport. Competition and self-selection, without justification other than what me-me-me wants.
That is not quite fair Malmo. As you love the current system, one could say in relation to you that it is what “me-me-me wants.” So even if you have a point here, any system would be what at least one person originally wanted.
So many dumb ideas. I remember one time someone suggested that the world championships should be spread over 14 meets with only 3 championship events at each meet.
The same person also said "I've long thought you could hold USAs in a bunch of cities in a given year. Have the shot put final in the hometown of Crouser, the 10ks in Eugene, the 100s in Austin, etc."
??? WTF? He insulted the very foundation of our sport. Competition and self-selection, without justification other than what me-me-me wants.
That is not quite fair Malmo. As you love the current system, one could say in relation to you that it is what “me-me-me wants.” So even if you have a point here, any system would be what at least one person originally wanted.
Why bother posting such Pee Wee Herman nonsense? I know you are but what am I?
Its never been about me-me-me, its always about whats fair to we-we-we. Stay on track.
That is not quite fair Malmo. As you love the current system, one could say in relation to you that it is what “me-me-me wants.” So even if you have a point here, any system would be what at least one person originally wanted.
Why bother posting such Pee Wee Herman nonsense? I know you are but what am I?
It’s never been about me-me-me, it’s always about whats fair to we-we-we. Stay on track.
Fairness is not obvious. Life isn’t fair and certainly ANY Olympic Trials selection method is not either. If you disagree, it is because you haven’t thought much about it.
No selection process is perfect. We've seen athletes on the receiving end of some bad luck at the worst moment imaginable (I'm just thinking SH-K in that 800m final where she got caught up in the carnage caused by Athing Mu which may have cost her an Olympic spot), but as far as an imperfect process goes it's close to as fair and non-political as possible.
On the flipside look what what happens when you have a high volume of qualifiers and don't just have a selection race (or let politics influence those) - Athletics Australia, who seemingly have some ridiculous drama each and every year. 2024 it was the womens marathon, last year Hoare gets screwed in the 1500m because he's not on the Bideau/Birmingham gravy train, this year for the Comm Games we are going to have a one-off "re-selection" race at a China DL for the womens 1500m spots after the situation that happened in the recent national final and I guarantee that won't be the end of it either.
So the trials are absolutely fine as they are. Dumb idea.
The current system mostly works well and doesnt really need fixing but maybe tweaking.
...And it should always be left up to the individual National Federations to determine their own system of selection, period.
For the USA I would say one issue that doesn't completely work out perfectly is when an athlete podiums at Nationals but doesn't have an International qualifying mark. Perhaps that spot could then fall to the USATF to then choose a "wildcard" athlete to fill the slot. USATF could also choose a format that automatically sends the top 2 to Worlds and fill the third slot with a "wildcard" selection, thus ensuring that the USA always is sending their best. Such a system combines the fairness of selection based on performance at Nationals with the "Wildcard" allowing for the third to be selected based on other factors such as World qualifying marks, injury during Nationals, DQ of a superior athlete at Nationals (Hocker) or other subjective scenarios.
??? WTF? He insulted the very foundation of our sport. Competition and self-selection, without justification other than what me-me-me wants.
(1) don’t WTF me
(2) show some respect—to Amby. To all of us
I honestly don't know why Amby's "idea" is so horrible...
Mostly because it really isn't his idea. The idea of picking a team rather than having trials has been thrown around for decades. And always gets shot down.
I was thinking maybe Amby was saying we should pick the team by who wrote the best poetry or something.
As usual per LR, people here are bickering from two perspectives that could be merged. Every nation that unlocks 3 spots by X date should be required to host a Trials. Top 3 + alternative during Trials go to championships. This is streamlined like Citius argues and maintains the competitive and elevated nature of hosting a national Trials. Solves both problems.
It's a general problem of too many meets run by slow OGs with too many heats not enough urinals hostie neighbors price goughed no parking no public bus to airport hotel rooms lying attendance figures low TV ratings.
NCAA Football uses Artificial Intelligence to pick the 8 playoff berths. So three tops picked by AI fo;r USA is great!
Someone remind me not to read their stuff for at least a month. They need to be put into a corner and have timeout for at least 30 days after coming up with an idea this dumb:
Citius wrote:
You could, for the sake of argument, view national governing bodies’ role in the process as more of a middleman with a frustrating tendency toward inconsistency. Rather than Team GB holding out developing athletes, shouldn’t it be up to World Athletics to say who’s invited? Instead of Kenya not announcing the Trials location until a couple weeks before, World Athletics would simply give the Kenyan federation a list of accepted names. In lieu of Australia hosting qualifying meets five months in advance, World Athletics could save them the trouble.
Rather than leave everything up to Seb Coe sitting alone in a room with a whiteboard and a telephone, WA could simply double- or triple-down on its touted world rankings system.
The top three ranked eligible athletes from each country are selected. Hard stop.
What's crazy is they compare their idea to the NFL system. It's a TERRIBLE analogy.
Citius wrote:
Every NFL team understands what needs to happen to play in the Super Bowl; each division doesn’t set its own playoff rules. Similarly, track and field could benefit from a lot more international consistency about “the rules” – and whether or not you think World Athletics should hold all the power, they have the ability to create a system that’s more streamlined for global championships to come.
They must not watch or understand sports.
Yes, comparing Olympics to Super Bowl is fine. We agree on that. But the playoffs are the US Trials. And to get to the Super Bowl, you have to do well in the playoffs.
Their (dumb) idea would be the equivalent of putting the top 2 teams from some sort of power rankings database (probably DVOA) without even holding playoffs or looking at their actual record.
I’d concur. Citius has a fantastic idea that would fix the quality of teams. Would you rather have someone who is a flash in the pan and got lucky, or a runner who earned their spot through racing and winning through world rankings. I would go a step further and transform the diamond league into a set of grand slams (similar to GST) so that we have more meets that matter. USA’s can be one of those meets too. Having a trials is the dumbest idea ever and can destroy athletes lives. I will admit though that the current world rankings are slightly flawed. They should take into account competition rather than automatically giving someone a ton of points because they placed high in a weak race in Rabat or china. Hype up these meets and make the stars show up.
The current state is the issue. Eur has biggest fan base. NBC LA owns the Olys 2028 and beyond the whole ball of wax forever and ever. The US Southwest is the mecca of world t&f and roads. The rest outside Eur and outside SW USA are ho hum about the sport. Product Placement and Product Branding are ignored in our sport. The sport is operated by jocks, not business people.
For what it's worth, this entire section is prefaced with:
DISCLAIMER: These ideas are malleable, open to debate, and far from a hill we are willing to die on. It’s a conversation starter!
The context here is Jess Hull getting knocked down at the Australian champs 1500 - and the possibility that random chance could keep one of your country's best from making a world or olympic team.
I agree that this take is dumb, but I at least understand why you might at least consider this. I think they're wrong, but it's at least an interesting consideration.