Mo Farah gets his payback - Andy Vernon not named to 2015 British Worlds Team despite having standard

The real reason is that UKA only has so many xxl singlets, and if Andy goes, a thrower has to stay home.

As with so many things in life this is more cock-up than conspiracy, with a dose of legal input and stupidity thrown in.

As many have already noted, since the Van Commenee days, the strategy has been to raise the bar. They think that over time, tough selection standards will lead to higher standards of performance. The requirement for two A standards should be seen in that context. Applying it to an event that is almost never run and takes a long time to recover from, is where the stupidity comes in. Fair enough to ask sprinters for two As - they can do it in the same afternoon!

The overly complicated selection policy is the product of a legal mindset and a desire to avoid too many appeals.

Regardless of how you feel about Andy Vernon, his non-selection is at odds with our stated aim to raise distance running standards. On the one hand they spend a lot of money on trips for young athletes to Kenya (money saving has NOTHING to do with the selection criteria - there is plenty of money); on the other a man who has two Euro medals and has run the third fastest time by a Brit over 10000 in 16 years, doesn't get selected for a Champs. Any young athlete will, if they have any sense, conclude they have little or no hope of ever representing us in a major champs over 10,000 if this policy continues.

The UK selectors have been paying more attention to how an athlete will represent their nation and support the team since there was a scandal in the cycling team a few years back.

A couple of UK team members decided to work for their pro team's captain in the race instead of the UK's captain (who didn't really have a legitimate shot.) Afterwards, they were officially punished and more attention was spent to team loyalty in selection.

Since Vernon is a fringe qualifier and is internationally famous for taking cheap shots at the UK's team captain, they may very well have decided that the team was stronger without Vernon there to cause trouble.

I doubt Farrah had anything to do w/ the choice, but if he did, I think he was justified. Vernon picked a fight. Vernon lost the fight. I can't respect someone who whines about losing a fight that he instigated.

...and to be fair to the selectors, it isn't like 30 years back when we had 3-4 people all running 13:15-13:20.

You are correct Rojo just about money really. Olympic sports get funded by lottery money depending on success which means medals. Therefore that is where the use all their resources. Someone like the Steeple girl, talented though she is, will never medal at OG or worlds so they don't care. UK athletics are worried about retaining funding and poor performance at the next OGs would mean a reduction in money from the government, while successful sports would get more. That is also why we are getting all these plastic Brits. More medals more funding and the UK athletics people get to keep their overpaid jobs for doing very little. All available money goes to potential medalists and they won't waste money taking people who won't medal.

In my opinion it is a very short sighted policy. Not everything is about medals.seeing someone from the local area making a British team provides motivation and encouragement for the youngsters coming through. They think they might be able to do that too.More depth gives more potential for success but they have a short term mentality and are focusing everything on current medal potential. They are doing very little for the grass roots of the sport and club athletics has been dieing here for a long time. Most British runners think UK athletics are a joke.

With regards Vernon he deserves to go. He ran 2742 and beat Ben True earlier in the year. He has the standard. He is the euro silver medalist. The only runner being taken in the 10k is mo. This year there was no trial for the 10k. In all other events top 2 at the trials and the standard twice guaranteed selection. In the 10k only one standard was required as there are so few decent 10ks anymore but because there was no trial for the 10k there was no way to gain auto selection in that event. The 10k was the only event completly down to selectors discretion. He has not run well over 5k this year but tends to run well when it counts. What sort of message does it send to aspiring 10k guys when someone runs the standard is the Euro silver medalist and has run 1311 last year? Basically there is no point being a 10k runner you won't be selected anyway. Probably the Mo stuff was a part of it. Some of the selections seem to be a bit about who you are coached or know by as well.

Where was Vernon supposed to run all these 10,000m races to hit the target twice. Hardly any Diamond League competitions have any distance further than 5,000m

I wonder if the person in charge of long distances is getting a plane ticket as Mo is trained in America and nobody else is going in the 10,000m. The times on the male side for middle distances are dire as well

I'm not British, but I do live in London.

This is complete bullshit.

Bravo to lots of the other posters on this thread though. It's very dispiriting stuff to see such feeble thinking from the decision makers at British Athletics; comes to something when a jumble of messageboard posters can so easily and convincingly tear apart their selection policy.

All very redolent of a million and one dysfunctional corporations with non-entity yes men who have blagged, networked and schmoozed their way to the top without any principles or real intelligence.

Posters do not realize that the UK has become a poor country. Third-world countries like the UK and Canada cannot afford to send all of their qualified athletes the way a rich country like the USA can. They can only send their very best. You do not see Kenya send sprinters or Bangladesh send high jumpers for example. Americans should not look down their noses at these poor countries.

Also, if athletes like Andy Vernon were not left home, the UK could not afford to send a full set of UK Athletics personnel and coaches to Beijing and the UK athletes would then be lost and not know what to do at the meet.

[quote]Slow Canadian wrote:

Yup.

Canadians think of the Worlds and Olympics as their right. They don't understand it's a privilege and there is little point in sending a Canadian who won't even make it to the finals.

Except for the fact that Canada isn't sending Nate Brannen, who has the standard this year (3:35) and DID make the final in Moscow 2 years ago. Also, CBT (who is also not being sent to Beijing) has looked really good this year and was 2nd in the Canadian champs (also ran 3:34 in Monaco). This doesn't make Athletics Canada look any better haha so I'm not sure what your argument is supposed to be.

Sorry Andy Vernon

next time learn how to shut your trap

Life goes on, buds

OMFG, get a LIFE! He's got another 10 years left in his career!

Charly Wegelius, Domestique. Very good read.

It isn't about money it's about poor decisions that are attempts to make UKA look more successful than it is. They do this by sending teams to mickey mouse events like the world 100km, world 50km, mountain running Champs etc... where they will perform well because the standard is crap. To the administrators a 4th place at World 100km is worth the same as a 4th in Beijing but we all know that is bollocks.

Relays should not be part of major championships. All they do is give mediocre sprinters the opportunity to win medals; an opportunity denied to middle/long distance runners of a similar standard and top class sprinters from countries that simply don't have four half decent 100/400 runners.

Vernon should have gone in the 10k. It is reasonable to expect a sprinter to hit an arbitrary standard more than once prior to selection - but a 10k runner? How many of the top guys run two 10ks in the 3-4 months before the championships?

Looking at the selected team, it clearly helps if your coach is an integral part of the selection process and if you are mates with the BBC commentary team; Steve, Paula, Denise, Colin etc.

Andy Vernon isn't the first British athlete to miss out on a major champs this way and he won't be the last. UK Athletics have had this policy in place for a few years now and it is unlikely to change. The idea behind it is that it will encourage and motivate athletes to improve and it will ensure that GB does not send 'also rans'.

The problem for me is that it has demonstrably not worked. The evidence shows that it has - at best - made no difference to the quality of performances either leading up to, or at, major championships. But still they persist with it.

In my view it is simple - the organisers of the champs set the standard and if you fulfil the criteria then you should go. For a country like Britian not to send people who have the relevant standard is shameful and disrepectful to the hosts.

Vernon would have done okay

Easier medals most likely in the paras