USATF does it again - They won't allow steeple qualifying time that Becky Wade ran in nationally televised meet

Why does it matter if the meet was on national television? That is completely irrelevant to this situation. Did you watch the meet? It should not have been on national television. I think we can all agree that it was clear from the broadcast and the look of the meet that it was not well organized. Sounds like many people were at fault, including Wade. Soon as she saw no railings she (and all the athletes running events around the oval) should have questioned things.

NO BIG DEAL.

If she is in sub-9:53 shape, she will run it. It's freaking months after the fact she ran 9:52.

If she doesn't run 9:53, then she is A FARCE.

Now we see she was actually DQed for a uniform violation.

She didn't have a swoosh on her singlet.

I'm just getting on a computer. Robert did not fully understand what I was telling him so his correction is inaccurate. How's that? I'll fix it.

I have no idea what Paul Doyle told Flotrack so I can't say the story is inaccurate. However, David Katz told me he never told Paul Doyle that cones were acceptable for any meet. David also told me that Paul Doyle told him that Paul never told Flotrack that David said cones were acceptable. According to David Paul told Flotrack to talk to David about all of this.

I know what David told me, but I don't know what Paul told Flotrack. Eitherway David was very clear cones are not acceptable for Olympic qualifying or record marks. David does not deal with USATF qualifying. Can someone show me which rules says the mark has to have a rail.

I added this to Robert's post to correct the record:

Note: Earlier we said the Flotrack story was "inaccurately written". That is incorrect. The story does not accurately reflect what David said happened. We have no idea what Doyle actually told Flotrack so we definitely shouldn't say it's inaccurately written, but it's inaccurate to the facts according to David.

Robert should have just said, David says the Flotrack story is inaccurate, not inaccurately written.

Well that sure clears things up.

wejo wrote:

I added this to Robert's post to correct the record:

Note: Earlier we said the Flotrack story was "inaccurately written". That is incorrect. The story does not accurately reflect what David said happened. We have no idea what Doyle actually told Flotrack so we definitely shouldn't say it's inaccurately written, but it's inaccurate to the facts according to David.

Robert should have just said, David says the Flotrack story is inaccurate, not inaccurately written.

The Atlanta meet also had a really fast women's 800. Did any girls get an Olympic OR trials qualifier/standard from that race that should now be nullified?

There were plenty of foreign girls in the Atlanta 800 that got an Olympic standard....should those Olympic standards by the Canadian & Caribbean girls also be disallowed because of the cones VS the rail??????

How say u?

messi wrote:

wejo wrote:

I added this to Robert's post to correct the record:

Note: Earlier we said the Flotrack story was "inaccurately written". That is incorrect. The story does not accurately reflect what David said happened. We have no idea what Doyle actually told Flotrack so we definitely shouldn't say it's inaccurately written, but it's inaccurate to the facts according to David.

Robert should have just said, David says the Flotrack story is inaccurate, not inaccurately written.

The Atlanta meet also had a really fast women's 800. Did any girls get an Olympic OR trials qualifier/standard from that race that should now be nullified?

There were plenty of foreign girls in the Atlanta 800 that got an Olympic standard....should those Olympic standards by the Canadian & Caribbean girls also be disallowed because of the cones VS the rail??????

How say u?

Is the entire meet invalid except for the 100m and 100m, 110m hurdles?

However you come out on whether they were right to disqualify her or not, USATF are incompetent idiots for including her in their list of qualifiers for almost 3 weeks and then "Whoops, nevermind..." a few days before the window closes

…triple espresso…oh yea…. wrote:

messi wrote:

The Atlanta meet also had a really fast women's 800. Did any girls get an Olympic OR trials qualifier/standard from that race that should now be nullified?

There were plenty of foreign girls in the Atlanta 800 that got an Olympic standard....should those Olympic standards by the Canadian & Caribbean girls also be disallowed because of the cones VS the rail??????

How say u?

Is the entire meet invalid except for the 100m and 100m, 110m hurdles?

Excellent point. And again....would IAAF & IOC accept this Atlanta meet for runners meeting/exceeding the Olympic standard?

Anyone? Rojo?

Why can't they have a rule that athletes can be given qualification due to USATF incompetence in not giving the athlete immediate notification?

There is no excuse for this amount of USATF incompetence.

From a LetsRun article about the 2009 World Championships Women's 10000, where some gals in the outer alley cut in too soon:

Other notes: Elvan Abeylegesse, last year's double silver medallist, dropped out around 3k to go and was pointing at her leg. Some of the women who started in the outside corral (including Masai) cut in too early, as there were no cones around the turn. No protest was filed, so no one could be disqualified. An IAAF spokesperson said even if a protest had been filed, no one would have been disqualified since it was an official's mistake.

Read more:

http://www.letsrun.com/2009/womens10k0815.php#ixzz4CSEsiMR4

Buy your shoes from LetsRun and save 15% everday

http://www.letsrun.com/save

Note: Masai won the race!

Please let's stop it with all this nonsense of how athletes have to assume more of a responsibility in situations like this. Who is POSSIBLY supposed to think that a meet set up to help achieve Trials qualifiers would NOT have a curb. Who would think ANY track would not have a curb? An athlete's job is to train, show up, and run fast. Period.

You "rules are rules" guys make me ill.

wejo wrote:

Can someone show me which rules says the mark has to have a rail.

Please refer to the following link for “Criteria for a Legal Meet”:

http://www.usatf.org/Events---Calendar/2015/USATF-Outdoor-Championships/Qualifying-Standards/Meet-Criteria.aspx

The meet/event must be held on a legal facility per USATF and/or IAAF rules & regulations.

Someone else can look up "legal facility" as that is where the explanation of how the track is supposed to be set up and measured lies.

In Sum This wrote:

Please let's stop it with all this nonsense of how athletes have to assume more of a responsibility in situations like this. Who is POSSIBLY supposed to think that a meet set up to help achieve Trials qualifiers would NOT have a curb. Who would think ANY track would not have a curb? An athlete's job is to train, show up, and run fast. Period.

You "rules are rules" guys make me ill.

Bingo!!!

Becky Wade is probably not going to be fast enough to make the Olympic team.

Many athletes have a dream to qualify and run in the Olympic Trials. It is something that very few people ever achieve.

She deserves to run in the Olympic Trials.

In Sum This wrote:

Please let's stop it with all this nonsense of how athletes have to assume more of a responsibility in situations like this. Who is POSSIBLY supposed to think that a meet set up to help achieve Trials qualifiers would NOT have a curb. Who would think ANY track would not have a curb? An athlete's job is to train, show up, and run fast. Period.

You "rules are rules" guys make me ill.

Agreed. Which athlete in the history of track spends their warmup with copies of the IAAF and USATF rules book and a measuring tape? That's ridiculous.

Gotta go to Class wrote:

If each lane does not need a rail for a 400 why does lane 1 need one?

I understand that most people are ignorant about the rules. But you could just pick up a rulebook (or look it up online) before you register your misinformed outrage at USATF.

Basically if a track is measured for a curb - it's 400m on a line measured 30cm away from the rail in Lane 1. All the other lanes are measured 20cm in. This is because you can run closer to the lane line without a rail than with one. So the inside edge of the track isn't 400m around, it's roughly 188cm shorter (pie times 30cm times two).

So depending on where the water jump was and where the race started Bush probably ran between 4.5 and 5 meters too short (14 or 16 curves). So she didn't run a 3000m Steeplechase and I'm not sure why USATF (or anyone for that matter) should accept converted times (especially converted to a longer distance) for an official time.

It amazes me how uninformed you are about track rules - and you run a blog about track and field! The same thing happened in a meet in San Diego 3 years ago and they were only doing 800m and mile races (less than a meter short for the 800 if you didn't start in Lane 1) and rightly the times didn't count.

Chet Manly wrote:

So depending on where the water jump was and where the race started Bush probably ran between 4.5 and 5 meters too short (14 or 16 curves). So she didn't run a 3000m Steeplechase and I'm not sure why USATF (or anyone for that matter) should accept converted times (especially converted to a longer distance) for an official time.

Sure sounds logical...Except for the fact that the water pit means you don't get any advantage for the majority of half the curves (noone aims to hit the pit hurdle right on the rail) and the fact that she ran an extra hurdle. Those two factors all but cancel out any "shortcut" but the main problem is the fact that A USATF OFFICIAL WAS ON SITE (AS REQUIRED) AND USATF CERTIFIED AND ACCEPTED THE RESULTS FOR 3 WEEKS UNTIL THEY REVERSED THEMSELVES RIGHT BEFORE THE WINDOW CLOSED.