Totally correct. Except for calling Filip Ingebritsen "borderline." He would not have qualified for NCAAs with what he's run the last couple of years. He is only borderline in that he shares a family border with Jakob.
While we are saying Tanner shouldn't be an auto start, I'd say Nuguse shouldn't either. He has no high placed finishes in a championship meet since the his third at US Champs in 2021. He's run a few fast times, but he hasn't shown he's even the best american, he's just been able to get into some of these big races and beat his teammates. He's busy racing over in europe losing to jakob and time trialing with ollie and mario but dodging cooper and hobbs.
While we are saying Tanner shouldn't be an auto start, I'd say Nuguse shouldn't either. He has no high placed finishes in a championship meet since the his third at US Champs in 2021. He's run a few fast times, but he hasn't shown he's even the best american, he's just been able to get into some of these big races and beat his teammates. He's busy racing over in europe losing to jakob and time trialing with ollie and mario but dodging cooper and hobbs.
Sam Tanner recently posted on IG saying that he was denied entry to the Oslo 1500m despite the fact that he's ranked 11th in the World Athletics ranking system for the 1500m and has a PB of 3:31. There are many men in the field who are ranked below him and have slower PBs. Sam also had a pretty strong indoor season, running a 3:51 mile at the Millrose Games and a 3:52 mile at the NB GP in Boston. How much politics is involved in putting together Diamond League fields? Does Sam deserve a shot to be in the race?
Totally get he's upset about not getting into a field of this magnitude, but this is not how exactly how these meets work Sam (fastest PR's, World rankings). At the crux of this is the reality that these meets aren't run by World Athletics they are still run by independent promoters. Yes they are sanctioned by WA as "Diamond League" but that's purely a $ sharing situation. Look at ISTAF Berlin - they don't want DL status because they can get still get enough money to hold their own meet without being told what events to put on. Almost all the big meets (Zurich, Brussels, Monaco, Paris) could do the same if they really wanted - I don't know the exact ins and outs of WA/meet details.
Anyways, when you are a 3.31 runner you simply aren't in the "auto start" category of runner anymore and when you aren't it's then becoming a battle of the agents and the "quid pro quos". What do I mean by that? Well a lot of these meets in Europe are actually run by athlete agents or by people heavily involved with agents. There is a ton of "I'll let your guy start here if you let my guy start in your meet" scenarios for one. The other one is athlete management groups that say "okay you have my guy for this race but only if I get a lane/start for my other guys in this, this and this event".
So now think about how many of these races are made up - let's take this 1500m. Well you have the "must start" guys (under 3.30). You'll probably have a few guys getting in by being attached to one of two of those guys in terms of the agent. You have (in this case) at least two home nation starters who otherwise would be borderline (in Nordas and Filip I). Couple of "quid pro quo" guys (for one, Charles Grethen is represented by Marc Corstjens who runs the Brussels DL). The spots fill up quickly and really the meet director cares only about the winning time (in this case what Jakob runs).
It's a tough world and a lot of the times it's not always "fair" but it is what it is. You can always try and get a better (more connected) agent.
This is how Joe Douglas and the Santa Monica TC were able to get some borderline 800/1500m guys into the big meets back in the day! Every meet promoter wanted Carl Lewis/Leroy Burrell, and to get them into the meet, the promoters would horse track & let in some of Joe Douglas' borderline 800/1500 runners into the meet. They had the leverage.
It sucks that Sam (good guy BTW) got shut out of Oslo, but don't think Tom Ratcliffe (Sam's agent) could've done anything with the meet promoters. Maybe someone could look at the field & tell us how many Ratcliffe clients got into the meet.
Totally get he's upset about not getting into a field of this magnitude, but this is not how exactly how these meets work Sam (fastest PR's, World rankings). At the crux of this is the reality that these meets aren't run by World Athletics they are still run by independent promoters. Yes they are sanctioned by WA as "Diamond League" but that's purely a $ sharing situation. Look at ISTAF Berlin - they don't want DL status because they can get still get enough money to hold their own meet without being told what events to put on. Almost all the big meets (Zurich, Brussels, Monaco, Paris) could do the same if they really wanted - I don't know the exact ins and outs of WA/meet details.
Anyways, when you are a 3.31 runner you simply aren't in the "auto start" category of runner anymore and when you aren't it's then becoming a battle of the agents and the "quid pro quos". What do I mean by that? Well a lot of these meets in Europe are actually run by athlete agents or by people heavily involved with agents. There is a ton of "I'll let your guy start here if you let my guy start in your meet" scenarios for one. The other one is athlete management groups that say "okay you have my guy for this race but only if I get a lane/start for my other guys in this, this and this event".
So now think about how many of these races are made up - let's take this 1500m. Well you have the "must start" guys (under 3.30). You'll probably have a few guys getting in by being attached to one of two of those guys in terms of the agent. You have (in this case) at least two home nation starters who otherwise would be borderline (in Nordas and Filip I). Couple of "quid pro quo" guys (for one, Charles Grethen is represented by Marc Corstjens who runs the Brussels DL). The spots fill up quickly and really the meet director cares only about the winning time (in this case what Jakob runs).
It's a tough world and a lot of the times it's not always "fair" but it is what it is. You can always try and get a better (more connected) agent.
This is how Joe Douglas and the Santa Monica TC were able to get some borderline 800/1500m guys into the big meets back in the day! Every meet promoter wanted Carl Lewis/Leroy Burrell, and to get them into the meet, the promoters would horse track & let in some of Joe Douglas' borderline 800/1500 runners into the meet. They had the leverage.
It sucks that Sam (good guy BTW) got shut out of Oslo, but don't think Tom Ratcliffe (Sam's agent) could've done anything with the meet promoters. Maybe someone could look at the field & tell us how many Ratcliffe clients got into the meet.
...meant to say horse trade, instead of horse track. Everything else still stands.
Meet promoters' job number one are to put butts in the seats and eyeballs on the television and computer screens. Everything else revolves around that. They're not obligated to put together a B or C section of a race unless it puts extra butts in the seats or extra eyeballs watching the meet on TV or online. As someone else posted, the promoters are in this to make money.
It's hard to believe Tanner's 1500 PR is as fast as it is. He feels like a guy who consistently got 10th at NCAAs and finishes at the back of the main pack at competitive races, but I guess that's enough to get you dragged to fast times
they should have held a dream mile event ( in line with history) alongside the 1500m. would have been easy to stack them with good athletes this time of the year.
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.