Thing is, I keep looking at The Bigger Picture here. Oh I know, bystander will probably come in and take more cheap shots, but, something is SERIOUSLY WRONG when the team we send to an Olympics or Worlds is a team in tatters...a little team... Canada won't partake. We won't get into the game. We are not worthy. Now, some will say that the strict standards will help us to Riiiise Up to the occasion. I disagree, in light of the many hurdles (in terms of support) which must be negotiated for any top Canadian track and field athlete. I don't think all the 13:20s were a result of AC standards. The 13;20s got done IN SPITE OF AC. I can't imagine our top athletes resting on their laurels at 13:30 if 13;30 was the standard. I poke fun of the 16/28 ratio not because 16 is so ridiculous, but because 28 is. This is NOT THE ANSWER - sending a little team once again. Of course, lowering the standards and sending a big team isn't the only answer either. Chicken / egg. We've got to get into the game, not abandon it. We've got to tell our 3:38 and 13:20 guys "hey, you are doing great...go to these Games..." Tell me how the sport is being Righted in this country. Tell me how support and leadership have been enhanced in the last few months / years. I missed that, somehow. Tell me how sending a small team is going to be better for us. Tell me how sending all of those 13:20 guys to the 5000m would be a bad thing instead of a really great thing. Tell me that NO WAY could any of those guys make the final, or if they didn't, tell me how that would be a disaster instead of something to experience / build on / bring back home to solve. Go ahead. I'm the luckiest 31min 10k guy in the world. Because I'm in the Canadian Forces, and as one of the top runners in the CF (gasp!) I got to go to 11 World Military XC Championships. I went to Tunisia and Netherlands and Nigeria and Germany and Algeria and Turkey and...Damn, I am greatful for all of the wonderful trips. I was dead last on my first one. It was the most humbling experience ever. I trained my ass off and got much faster, and, later on, I got to midway in the field on later ones. I know that these events weren't the Olympics or the "real" Worlds, but the effect this had on me, and the trickle down effect that it caused in terms of passing down my experiences and lessons learned were imho IMMENSE. Laugh if you will, but sending a full team to these Big Games will help us immensely, not hinder us. We have got it wrong. And we shall suffer for it. There are many many things that need to be done in order to get ourselves out of the doldrums with respect to our sport in this country. One of those things MUST BE, imho, to stop this idiocy that we are seeing once again, and sending 28, and stopping people like Reid from going. I believe a full team would be 130? So we are about 22% of a full team? It's BS! Go! Let's do an experiment. What is the 3rd place performance in Canada right now in all events. Let's see how incredibly weak and undeserving these performances are. List 'em! I'm not saying that we are a powerhouse. But dammit - lets start being something other than inferiority complexed outcasts.