Parker Wolfe sour grapes?

For those complaining about the World Ranking system, guess what, if they simply went with a ranking of best times Wolfe would still miss out by one spot. Two spots, if you assume Ingebrigtsen could run faster than 13:11 if he really needed to. And Ky Robinson would be one of the guys bumping him off the list.

This is the NCAA's fault. Get on board with WA so winning NCAAs gets big points.

How did that comment get so many thumbs up? Why are so many people reading threads on a website that they think should be shut down? Do they not know how to close a web page?

Not subjective but Wolfe finished top-3 & should get to go imo. Not sure World Athletics got it right if Wolfe can beat Blanks a month before the Olympics & not get to go. They're incentivizing fast times, fine, but that does clash a bit with the NCAA system. Did we not want to see him do ACC Champs or NCAA Regionals or NCAAs? He would've been better off knocking out the standard than competing for championships.

I’ll answer. It’s because a lot of us have been coming here for 24+ years, discussing track & field, and shooting the sh-t on other topics unrelated to running. This place has always had a strange user base, but lovingly so. I’ve ignored the political stuff over the past decade, but obviously noticed it. Lately, the insanity of the political stuff has bled into running and people just seem to want to talk sh-t and accuse people of doping. That’s all that seems to happen here. It’s sad. The inmates are running the asylum.

Don't try to tell me that the current state of LRC is better than Rexing, Airplane-on-Treadmill, Pirate/Cat/Gun Girl, Post-Nuptial, POSE Method, and a million more discussions. It’s not. It’s a bunch of edgelord trolls who don’t even run. I think LRC has run its course. We don’t need another Reddit.

He wouldn't have finished top 3 if times and rankings didn't matter..the tace would have been a crawl and Hocker and Kincaid and Teare would have beaten him. Blanks outsmarted him.

Agreed. Both Blanks and Wolfe are super talented and I hope to see them competing for teams in the years to come. But I find it funny that we tout the US Trials as the fair, straight-forward system, then you have instances where Wolfe beats Blanks straight-up, but Blanks goes.

And yes, I understand the standard, but explaining this scenario to my family as we watched highlighted how I really wish we could just send the first 3 across the line.

Sure you did!

also, sounds like a pretty cool dream. “Get a promotion!” Nice. Very comparable to reaching the absolute height of sport and having someone you beat twice in the last month in major races go to Paris over you.

Also he hasn’t said a single negative thing about Graham so get off it. He is allowed to be disappointed!

It is clear (the rules are laid out beforehand) but it is still a subjective decision to not value NCAA running as much as a World Athletics bronze label event.

To win NCAAs is (as we know) harder than winning some random WA meeting in Germany or Slovakia. But WA subjectively decided to weight those meets in such a way that Wolfe has a lower ranking than people he beat many times this year.

That is "fair" because the rules are clearly stated beforehand and are applied equally. It is still subjective.

p.s. I don't care which of them was selected. I don't follow college running that closely. I just think that if you finish top-3 at the US trials, your "ranking" should automatically be high enough.

His NCAA 5000m win wouldn't have helped his average score, the time was too slow.

NCAAs and US Champs should be worth more points though, no way should they be down in category "B". If you look at the competition performance rankings they're usually the second and third highest-scoring meets every year, just below Olympics/Worlds and usually ahead of European Champs. They should move them up a couple spots to the "GL" category, just below Diamond League and World Indoors.

They were scoring every NCAA meet right up until outdoor champs. You gotta wonder if Parker Valby winning the 10k in clown shoes caught someone's attention at World Athletics.

yep. He IS a math major. :)

I thought about deleting this thread about 3 posts in but then reminded myself we believe in free speech. Now that the internet is a thing and it's not going away, people need to learn to just ignore the nayayers. THe reality is while I don't like the first post and think it's crazy, we have an upvote and downvote system and it shows 75% of the people also think it's a terrible post and thread.

Parker doesn't have sour grapes. Perhaps I should have deleted it but it gets dicey. But the website isn't bad for the sport. It is the ony place where fans worldwide can come together and talk about the sport. And when fans talk it's not often pretty as fan is short for fanatic.

No. Establishing rules does make a decision subjective. That is the same as saying that having a standard is subjective.

I have no comment on the sour grapes stuff... but in no way was Parker robbed. Can we just agree to that? Whether you like the rules or not, they were the rules and what he had to work with. This is our sport. No matter what level you competed at there are time standards that need to constantly be met. Whether its to get into an invitational, advance out of a heat, or qualify for the Olympics. Whether you like it or not, time standards are something that we deal with all the time. Our qualification system for the Olympics is not first 3 across the line. Its first 3 across the line WITH THE STANDARD. If you don't have the standard going into the Trials, you need to go for it during the race. Parker should have known what he needed and gone with Grant. He had a shot to move up his world rankings with a sfaster time or to auto qualilfy with a 13:03 or whatever. He didn't do it. Coming in top 3 is irrelevant without the time.

If you go back to Graham's interviews from the winter, he was very clear that the BU race was an attempt to get the Olympic standard out of the way. He knew what he had to do way back then... how did Parker (or his coach) not understand what HE needed to do? Its bizarre. It sucks. But its not unfair. Quite frankly, Parker doesn't deserve to go. Its not about place. Its about time first, and then place. That's the system until either a) USATF only accepts into the meet those that have a qualifying time for the Olympics or b) the Olympics change their approach to not care about a minimum time standard for certain countries who have displayed historic greatness in their team selection. The latter is too subjective. I think there should be time minimums. I actually think the first solution is the best. Only accept into the Trials those with the Olympic Standard.

Econ/Philosophy major

Your statement makes it sound like Wolfe didn't run all out at BU. Of course he went for the standard. He isn't fast enough.

I agree. Parker is not fast enough according to the Olympic Committee. This also has nothing to do with USATF. It is just a fact.

His fans don't seem smart enough to understand basic rules. And they aren't willing to accept that his times are his times.