Canadians: What is up with your crazy Olympic qualifying process?

NUKE CANADA

Oh, please. A 3:1 ratio of staff:athletes getting flown to the games while QUALIFYING ATHLETES stay home disgusts the general public and athletes alike.

This is part of the sickness of Athletics Canada. It happens year after year - a huge bureaucracy that has little effect except to continuously rationalize their own jobs. It is really sad.

saladdbar wrote:

So you're saying the A+ is meaningless??? I'm confused. I thought you were just defending it?

If it's not a selection criteria, why does it exist?

I defended A+? Um, sure, if you say so.

A+ is not meaningless. If you read the qualifying criteria at

you'll see that running A+ is just one of several ways to qualify, but it certainly is not the only way. Nor are any athletes who achieve only A standard prevented from going because they have not also achieved A+.

You did read and understand that table in Appendix B, didn't you?

Um, yeah wrote:

If you read the qualifying criteria at

https://www.athletics.ca/files/NationalTeamPrograms/NationalTeams/SelectionCriteria/2012OLYMPICGAMESSELECTIONCRITERIAFINALEN.PDF

...

Yes, I read all TEN PAGES of the Canadian qualifying criteria. Funny, isn't it, that you could write the criteria of so many other countries manage three lines.

Um, yeah wrote: ... You did read and understand that table in Appendix B, didn't you?

LOL.

Nice to start the week with a laugh: "You did read and understand that table in Appendix B, didn't you?"

You are straight out of Office Space. Anyone with such a tolerance for bureaucracy MUST be working for Athletics Canada. Amirite?

You just don't get that you are proving my point (see thread title), do you? That hilariously bad table is EXACTLY the problem.

You read all TEN PAGES? Wow, I'm impressed!

Of course one could distill the criteria down to two pages - the table of standards and the table of qualifying criteria.

But I'm curious as to what other countries you are referring to whose criteria are covered in just three lines.

Perhaps you are thinking of the UK Athletics criteria at

which are eleven pages.

Or maybe you are thinking a smaller country, more relevant to Canada, like Australia, at

whose criteria is only twenty three pages (plus four appendix pages).

But since twenty three is much more than the 'excessive' ten, perhaps you are thinking of the short and concise US criteria at

which is only twenty two pages.

Once again, no, you arenotrite. I am not in the employ of AC. Simply repeating the suggesting that I am really doesn't further any point of yours.

What is it really that you find so confusing about that table? Within just a few seconds one can look up any event and determine explicitly what is needed to qualify or whether a given athlete has met the standards.

Have a look at the Aussie criteria. Can you tell me definitively if a 2:32:06 female marathoner will have qualified under their rules? What about a 2:31:50 female marathoner?

For that matter, what about a 3:34.60 male 1500m runner?

Will a 2:12:20 male UK marathoner have qualified based on their criteria? Why or why not?

BTW, Canadian Olympic standards are absurd in other sports as well. I have a friend in another sport who won nationals, had a sufficient point total to go to the Games, had placed well enough at international meets...and who didn't get to go, because there was nobody else on the team who had similarly qualified, so they sent NOBODY.

To not be sent because somebody else failed to qualify?

He even offered to pay his own way, entirely, and his offer was refused.

Also, this type of thing has been going on for at least 25 years in Canada. This is not my opinion, this is my experience.

For the purposes of clarity, can Um Yeah or somebody explain the incentives again? Why is AC doing it this way?

What is the incentive (and from who/where) that results in this restrictive methodology? Resources to other sports? If they send atheletes who do not perform, they lose funding?

It has already been mentioned that they are not given a "budget" of so many athletes.

Lyndon LaRouche wrote:

For the purposes of clarity, can Um Yeah or somebody explain the incentives again? Why is AC doing it this way?

What is the incentive (and from who/where) that results in this restrictive methodology? Resources to other sports? If they send atheletes who do not perform, they lose funding?

It has already been mentioned that they are not given a "budget" of so many athletes.

I likely don't have this quite right, so someone else is free to elaborate, but it's not a matter of a 'budget' for the Olympics themselves.

Sport Canada funds all kinds of amateur sports in Canada, swimming, triathlon, athletics, skiing, synchronized diving, etc.

They have to come up with some way to decide how much money to give to each sport, all of whom can make pretty much the same case that their athletes work so hard, are good roll models and can make Canadians joyful by winning medals.

So if you are Sport Canada and the Feds give you say, $100 million annually, how do you decide whether to increase the $4 million you give to Athletics Canada (thereby taking away the same amount from someone else) or reward another more 'productive' sport that happens to win more Olympic medals?

A system whereby measuring Olympic or World Championship medals or top eight or top half of the field is a natural consequence of trying to equate different sporting demands. It may not be the best or the most fair, but it is an easily understood model.

I think it's safe to say everyone reading this will agree that a top twelve 1500m performance is probably a 'better' achievement than winning bronze in solo synchronized dirt biking, but how do you quantify that if you are Sport Canada and you've got one party saying 'give us X dollars and we'll get some guy in the final' and another party saying 'no, give us that X dollars and we'll get an Olympic medal'?

Answering that question, and not just preaching to the choir, is what the sport needs to do.

The idea that Canadian Canadian National Sport Organizations (NSOs) should limit their Olympic teams to those athletes who show the potential to place well at the Games is a Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) concept; it has nothing to do with Sport Canada.

In the lead-up to the 2004 Games, the COC preached that by "raising the bar" (this was the rhetoric used by the COC to describe Canada's having tougher Olympic standards than the International Sports Federations) Canadian athletes would be inspired to perform better. The COC also suggested that tougher standards would reduce the number of "tourists" (athletes just happy to be there) we sent to the Games.

There seems to be some confusion around Sport Canada. Sport Canada does fund NSOs based on performance in international competition (Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, World Championships, etc.). However, there is no Sport Canada policy that suggests an NSO will be looked at more favourably if it performs well at such competitions with smaller teams (i.e. if Athletics Canada wins four medals at the London Games, it doesn't matter to Sport Canada if those four medals came from a team of 8 athletes or a team of 40). For the purpose of answering the OP's question, Sport Canada is irrelevant.

Toronto wrote:

For the purpose of answering the OP's question, Sport Canada is irrelevant.

Thanks for the clarification.

um,yeah gets it! not sure why this requires 4 pages to understand it though.

The selection process is driven by the funding model (OTP), and paying your own way is not an option - there is enough of that for the Junior teams already (since they no have no funding).

No way will it be determined otherwise - it is not the fault of Sport Canada that African nations are generally better at distance running than Canadians (so less opportunity to get medals). Either Track needs to get to that level (better runners) or deal with it that other sports can earn medals more easily - and so will get a bigger share of the funding pie. It's not more complicated than that.Is it fair? depends on the audience. Runners say no, others say suck it up and get medals or quit bitching.

in the know? me too wrote:

Nice to start the week with a laugh: "You did read and understand that table in Appendix B, didn't you?"

You are straight out of Office Space. You just don't get that you are proving my point (see thread title), do you? That hilariously bad table is EXACTLY the problem.

Um, yeah wrote:

What is it really that you find so confusing about that table? Within just a few seconds one can look up any event and determine explicitly what is needed to qualify or whether a given athlete has met the standards.

OK, you're right. These 10 pages make way more sense than "top three across the line with A standard."

in the know? me too wrote:

Nice to start the week with a laugh: "You did read and understand that table in Appendix B, didn't you?"

You are straight out of Office Space...You just don't get that you are proving my point (see thread title), do you? That hilariously bad table is EXACTLY the problem.

Um, yeah wrote:

What is it really that you find so confusing about that table? Within just a few seconds one can look up any event and determine explicitly what is needed to qualify or whether a given athlete has met the standards.

OK, you're right. These 10 pages make way more sense than "top three across the line with A standard." Especially thanks to good old Appendix B.

A+ standard is great! Hooray for arbitrary standards beyond those set by the silly IAAF! Next time let's have a B, A, A+ and also an A-super-duper-plus. Just for clarity.

Dana Way Daegu Team

Sport Biomechanist & Performance Analyst

What???

Um, yeah wrote:

It is not required by anyone to qualify.

Help me out here. What exactly did Brannen and Levins recently do....and why?

AC staff are too busy paying themselves lots of money to do nothing to actually make decisions that will benefit the growth of track in Canada. Also, don't forget charging national team members $2-3000 in order to attend a world event while the 45 AC staff get their flights paid for.

Oh, and don't forget squandering obscene amounts of money for a relay team that can't make the finals of a WC.

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All should pay equally, but if you are making the rules (AC) and don't believe in fairness then this type of thing goes on.

With regard to qualifying for the Games why not go with top 3 at the Trials and send those who have made the Olympic qualifying times? Something along these lines that is fair is what the athletes deserve. It would also be a respectful and kinder approach to selection.

Um, no wrote:Help me out here. What exactly did Brannen and Levins recently do....and why?

You mean in the 1500 and 10,000, where the A and A+ standards are identical?

Um, guy...do you even follow the sport? See this thread:

You asked for examples of people being kept of the team because they have no A+ - here's one. Of course there will be more. Same as last WC. (What a horrible situation that was, by the way. Still can't believe the way AC treated athletes and coaches.)

in the know? me too wrote:

Um, guy...do you even follow the sport? See this thread:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4547144

You asked for examples of people being kept of the team because they have no A+ - here's one. Of course there will be more. Same as last WC. (What a horrible situation that was, by the way. Still can't believe the way AC treated athletes and coaches.)

Um, guy, did you read my post just above?

"Canadian criteria really comes down to two pages - one a table of IAAF A and B standards (with Canadian replacements for the marathon) and one a table of the various methods an athlete can qualify."

With the exception of the marathon, which I explicitly noted, every Canadian athlete is only under the IAAF A or B standard regime, with some degree of repeatability.

The IAAF marathon standard is far easier than any other event and the Canadian one brings it in line with them (check IAAF points system).

So again, other than two female marathoners who did ran about the equivalent of an IAAF B standard for other events, who specifically is being kept off the team because they don't have an A+ to go with their A standard?

You said there will be more, so please elaborate.