Sydney McLaughlin to double in DL Final - an event she's not eligible for - Update: DL will not let her run

Whose spot is Sydney taking?

Name the athletes who are unjustly missing out on the 200 and 400 now that Sydney is racing

She's neither the WR holder or Olympic champion in those two events, however.

A better way to encourage pro athletes to participate in Diamond League would be to offer more money.

Disgraceful that they're rewarding Sydney with a pass to the DL final after she refuses to compete during the season. Not only that but she'll be fresher than the other athletes that had to earn their place.

What's a male Karen?

A. Read this thread

Would you clowns prefer she not run? You've got to be the race officials DQing highschool kids for any possible reason.

Letting SML run in the finals just further diminishes any importance the track regular season may have and will further encourage the stars to consistently miss meets throughout the year to exclusively focus on the championships. This is an example of tracks governing bodies being weak and further damaging their own product in exchange for a one time benefit as opposed to consistent exposure throughout the year.

The Overall World Rankings specifically gives an Event List for each athlete, so I'm assuming these are the events they can qualify for. SML's Event List includes the 200m, 400m, and 400H, so this list plus her Top 20 position (9th overall) qualifies her for any combination of these 3 events for the Diamond League Final. I think this is how they avoid a top athlete just picking some random event; like in your Ryan Crouser example, his event list on the World Rankings only includes the Shot Put, so he is only eligible for the Shot Put.

That’s a good point and makes sense. This is showing though that the Diamond League will just ignore their rules when they want to. I don’t necessarily have a problem with that since in this case I think they’re breaking their rules for a fine reason, but in the future they should just write the rules to say they can let in wild cards at their discretion, since no one will trust anything else they put in the rules after this.

Yep, that's what it says. Obviously they aren't going to use this rule to enter Sydney ML in the shot put, but taken literally I do think the rule would allow that.

She’s barely famous in the US

Imagine if it had been framed this way all season. That's what gets me. I always consider the situational influence first and foremost.

For all we know this agreement was reached months ago. It certainly had to be long in the making. There's no chance Sydney was going to step away from training and then suddenly resume on short order to run two races in Europe. She never takes anything resembling that type of risk.

This information was concealed to protect Sydney. Otherwise there would have been scrutiny all year. Steve Cram, Tim Hutchings, Paul Swangard and all the other major commentators would have prefaced every Diamond League women's 200 and 400 by saying, "of course we're competing for Diamond League points today but keep in mind there is one less spot available this year because Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone has a bye into the final."

That would have led to debate and uproar all season. It would have been a topic at Diamond League press conferences and on forums like this. Sydney would have been asked about it. Other athletes would have been asked to weigh in, and many of them would not have been reluctant to do so.

Instead, somehow the timing of the news turns into, "Isn't it terrific that Sydney will compete again this season!"

I'm not going to be hypocritical. I don't like anything she stands for. Easily my least favorite athlete. This merely reinforces my confidence that I've been handicapping her correctly.

# 1 in the world with WR

means elligible for every meet on the planet.

any time, any place.

period.

Sid bs Paulino?

Bring it.

I’ve been wondering for a while why nobody seems to take issue with the fact that SML never competes on the Diamond League. Something I don’t understand because I assume she would command some very decent appearance fees as the most dominant athlete in the sport. I was hoping that Femke Bol would beat her in Paris, unlikely as I knew it would be, simply because she runs nearly every DL 400H.

As for the Brussels DL, I will watch of course but agree that since she didn’t compete in any regular DL, she shouldn’t be in the final. She couldn’t even be bothered to run Pre?

Note all the flak Josh Kerr gets for not racing that often - and a lot of people sympathize with Jakub about that. But he’s there a lot more than SML.

Not that I’ve heard her say it, but we hear so often “I want to promote the sport.” You can’t do that if you’re not out there running races.

Thank goodness for that! I would hate to hear rational thought all of a sudden.

I’m noticing a disturbing pattern of you using your platform to generate negative discourse about Sydney. During the Olympics, you created a thread to single her out for not running the mixed relay, even though she wasn’t the only sprint star who didn’t run that event. Now this article.

Instead of hyping the matchups we’ll get to see with Sydney racing in Brussels, you’re focusing on whether or not she should be allowed to compete. It’s an unnecessary and unwarranted invitation for more Sydney bashing. Very disappointing.

I don’t recall you guys ever giving Sydney a splash page for any of her world records. You might say the reason for that is this site is oriented toward distance running, yet you’re quick to publish a thread or article about Sydney when you have something negative to write about her. Why is that?

As stated, Pre didn’t have a 200, 400 or 400H race. What was she supposed to do? Nike organized both that meet and the LA Grand Prix where she ran. With these 2 races, she’ll actually have competed at 8 different meets. Her domestic schedule was pretty good and now she’s competing in Europe.
Interesting races shes run at decent to great meets since May 18:

200 in LA vs DL-level field

400H in Atlanta

400 in NYC in Gold-level meet

400H in USAs as good as a DL-level event

400H, 4x400 Olympics (self-evident)

Brussels 400 and 200

Kerr has

800 scrimmage vs Brooks Beast teammates in late April

Pre mile which was great

800 scrimmage (for him) at UK Trials

1500 Olympics

Zurich, which is great

5th Ave Mile (yes solid field, but a mostly for fun race for these guys with Kessler and Gourley)

I’d probably give SML the edge for more interesting schedule. The 200 is like if Kerr either ran a DL 800 or 5,000. And running the DL final double is a pretty big spot.

Who cares? Competes in a niche event and even then doesn't compete very much at all. I'll watch the middle distances thank you.

If this actually happens, it’s a step in the right direction for SML. I predict she will pull out of the second half of the proposed double at the last minute.