Ridiculous: UK Athletics may stop sending full teams to the Olympics, will focus on heavy hitters

Alan Abrahamson's commitment to being on the wrong side of every debate is amazing.

The UK sport elite prog is lottery funded so your worry is totally misplaced

You are also wrong in 2nd para. Boa has to rubber stamp each ngb's nominated selections but it doesn't, or cant, add in athletes who haven't met their ngb selection criteria, even if these athletes have met the Olympic criteria set in this case by world athletics. In a 4 year cycle I'd guess the cost relating solely to Olympic participation is much less than 10% of the cost of getting them to qualify in first place.

The BA approach reminds me a bit of that tit of a cabinet minister who said "because we are a better country than France or Belgium " wrt covid vax rollout. All quite embarrassing to be a brit, I find.

BOA send a legal expert, who doesnt need know anything about athletics, to the selection meeting to ensure that the selection criteria are correctly applied. They will try to ensure that there are no errors in the selection process that could be the subject of legal challenge.

I do not think that BOA will allow UKA to set a policy that leaves many IAAF (?) qualified athletes at home because UKA want a policy that produces a small team.

What would happen if British Hockey said they were only going to send a team if they were not ranked in the top 8, but the top 16 were invited ? UKA are saying that you have to be in the top 50% of qualified athletes to make a British team. I do not think that is acceptable. Do you ?

I dont know for sure but I don't think the boa has a significant role (or maybe,any) in setting Ngb selection criteria for the Olympics.

I think that given the horribly tough qualifying standards across all t and f events at global level UK should take every qualified athlete. As often happens,by trying to make itself appear clever and (cough) innovative BA is likely to make itself look stupid and further alienate itself from 99% of people who actually care about the sport. By most measurements (medal count, Top 8 points number of qualified athletes) UK is about 5th to 8th in elite world athletics. For a medium sized population with huge obesity issues and a state school system that largely marginalises PE,having sold off playing fields decades ago, I'm not sure how much more we might expect.

UKA will set the policy it considers appropriate. It will then be sent to BOA for confirmation. At that stage I would hope that BOA would realise the 'small team'approach doesn't match their own in house approach. Not only that - lots of athletes who feel they should be selected - have IAAF invite from Ranking Lists - would be appealing to BOA, which they will hate. It is a shambles waiting to happen.

I wonder if there is a restraint of trade case against BA, that could be brought by an athlete whose invitation to a champs, based upon their ranking, is declined by BA?

Preventing an athlete attending a major champs affects their ability to earn kit sponsor bonuses and win future contracts.

This is supposed to be a professional sport.

I appreciate a lot of people feel this way. Personally, however, when I spend money going to a major champs I want to cheer on as many British athletes as possible. I love seeing people progress to a semi or a final who weren’t expected to.

I’ll think twice about spending money on trips to Tokyo, LA, Gold Coast in the future. Of more direct impact to BA, I’ll also be less inclined to spend money on a weekend ticket for the Trials.

(Of course, by far the most important argument against the new policy, as others have written, is that it will destroy the pipeline of athletes).

I'm no lawyer but most of the principles relating to lottery funding of elite athletes, by UK sport, were tested early doors before 2000 and the dice are all in the governing body's favour. Their selection policies are all no doubt run by their and UK Sports lawyers. As long as Ngb selection(with boa sign off for OG ) remains the only way to compete at a world or Olympic champs I think this will stand. There are already at least 2 cases of BA declining to send athletes who received WA wild card invites to champs. Ugly stuff imo.

I’m not talking about lottery funding. I’m talking about the way preventing someone from attending a WC or OG affects their ability to earn via kit contracts and other sponsorship.

The WC and OG are the shop window for pro athletes.

Jazmin Sawyers winning the long jump at Euro indoors must make Mr Buckner have an outbreak of "heavy hitter sweats" about someone who has been there or there abouts for many years jumping a PB and getting a gold medal at age 28. Eek.

Rest up Buckner, there is a antidote, it's called "pick anyone who qualifies" because you have to be in it to win it old boy.

Bump

Big difference between UK and US laws on this. That lawsuit would absolutely work in a free country like the US.

So you would have miraculously known to send Molly Seidel who didn't win the Trials to the Olympics over Aliphine?

There is 0 chance that UK athletics with this new policy would have sent Molly Seidel to the Olympics. She left with a medal.

Did the Brits propose something similar in 2013?

dailymail.co.uk

Athletes under pressure as governing body tightens its selection criteria

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/search.html?s=&authornamef=Mike+Dawes

UK Athletics has toughened its selection criteria for this summer's World Championships in Moscow. The governing body has implemented a first-past-the-post system.

Open link

did they then backtrack?

This policy will kill the throws as who will want to try and reach Olympics qualifying and risk not to be picked when there are big money contracts for men’s and women’s Rugby.

Ditto the paid expansion of women’s cricket; football and netball for other field events etc.

"No money anymore "? Explain.

What a debacle in the ongoing British swimming championships. It has reached laughingstock status on the major swimming forums. They did the same thing as in track, making the qualifying standards for world championships very difficult under premise of sending medal contenders only.

Meanwhile after 3 days only 3 swimmers had met the standards. The British swimming federation had to scramble and change the rules in the middle of the meet, trying to save face and team.

They are also in jeopardy of not qualifying several relays, especially since breaststroke ace Adam Peaty is sitting out this year while dealing with mental health struggles and general poor form.