Lanni Marchant 2:31 in 2012, 2:28:00 in 2013. Athletics Canada still defends denying "rising star" status and Olympi

Just want to make it clear here that Canadian men had an easier standard than the women. 2:11:29 equals 2:32:23 on the Mercier calculator (based on several years of IAAF ranked performances), yet Canadian Athletes chose 2:29:55 for their women's standard. Had Canadian Athletics chosen equal gender times, both Lanni and Krista would (and should have) gone to the Olympics. They got jipped big time.

I have also always wondered if the "Rising Star" category is worth it or not. It is a very inexact science. At the same time, I've never believed in not sending people who qualify. This idea that we shouldn't send people who won't get in the top 16 does not help. Experience is very important in anything you do.

The Olympics only come up every 4 years, so we don't have a lot of time to get experienced. Let everyone go who qualifies and stop trying to guess who might be a rising star.

Is there any reason for people from Ontario to come to BC to train when it is easier to go straight south?

gender equity wrote:

Just want to make it clear here that Canadian men had an easier standard than the women. 2:11:29 equals 2:32:23 on the Mercier calculator (based on several years of IAAF ranked performances), yet Canadian Athletes chose 2:29:55 for their women's standard. Had Canadian Athletics chosen equal gender times, both Lanni and Krista would (and should have) gone to the Olympics. They got jipped big time.

...and now the women are four minutes faster than that, while the men have stood still.

But LM and KD weren't Rising Stars(tm), oh no.

WestCoaster22 wrote:

I have also always wondered if the "Rising Star" category is worth it or not. It is a very inexact science. At the same time, I've never believed in not sending people who qualify. This idea that we shouldn't send people who won't get in the top 16 does not help. Experience is very important in anything you do.

The Olympics only come up every 4 years, so we don't have a lot of time to get experienced. Let everyone go who qualifies and stop trying to guess who might be a rising star.

Is there any reason for people from Ontario to come to BC to train when it is easier to go straight south?

Health insurance, not dealing with a visa, access to great canadian races, not paying tax on prize money or having it withheld. I'm sure there are many more.

Canada Eh wrote:

I have also always wondered if the \\\"Rising Star\\\" category is worth it or not. It is a very inexact science. At the same time, I\\\'ve never believed in not sending people who qualify. This idea that we shouldn\\\'t send people who won\\\'t get in the top 16 does not help. Experience is very important in anything you do.

The Olympics only come up every 4 years, so we don\\\'t have a lot of time to get experienced. Let everyone go who qualifies and stop trying to guess who might be a rising star.

Is there any reason for people from Ontario to come to BC to train when it is easier to go straight south?

Health insurance, not dealing with a visa, access to great canadian races, not paying tax on prize money or having it withheld. I\\\'m sure there are many more.[/quote]

Not getting shot

SB wrote:

If love running and racing, then do it! Try to be the best you can be, but don't ever worry that if you're not as fast as other people, you're somehow wasting your time. You're only wasting your time if you're NOT doing the thing you love the most. News flash: we will all be dead soon anyway. If training to race makes you feel more alive, then RUN! Chances are you will make do, and likely still be a solid citizen and parent some day (or at least no worse than if you hadn't run); and, I promise you, you will never regret it.

It seems I have not been clear. I think people should continue to run so long as they want to do so. If it is fun - go for it - whether you are elite, sub-elite, or a rec runner. I don't deny the benefits of having hobbies, staying fit, testing one's limits, etc.

The only thing I take issue with is the idea that there is some obligation on the part of individual runners, or their clubs/and of the government, to find a way to keep people in the sport at the expense of other facets of thier lives, at a time when those people are facing pressures to go do other things.

That is my only point. It is a trite point I suppose, but I find we spend a lot of time and energy hand wringing over how to keep people in the sport at a moderately high level without accepting the reality that not many people want to be a "dirtbag runner" (i.e. choosing pursuit of PBs at significant financial cost) into their late 20s - and there should be no shame in that.

However, in re-reading this thread, I may be arguing a straw man. Perhaps the obligations that people are arguing for are simply an obligation to instill a sense in athletes that running can be a lifelong pursuit, even if such athlete reprioritises running - if that is the case, at least we got to see some impassioned arguments on the benefits of sport.

Watson's pair of 2:13's

http://runningmagazine.ca/fade-from-the-front/

Destroyer cruising 5:04's

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw5vnabqnLE&feature=youtu.be&a

Canadian observer wrote:

...and now the women are four minutes faster than that, while the men have stood still.

But LM and KD weren't Rising Stars(tm), oh no.

And how many years did it take for the National record to be broken?

Is the Mercier really a validated comparison tool? A 2:03:23 for men gives 2:20:21 for women. Women have run under this men's WR equivalent at least 25 times. I'm not trying to detract from any performances, I'm just curious.

“I have $45 in my bank account right now,” Watson says.

The financial reality of being an elite runner in Canada was also beginning to take its toll. Watson has not been supported by Athletics Canada since 2010, and was getting by doing odd jobs like running a crepe stand, and part-time work. Athletics Canada maintains a point system in order to decide who gets “carded,” meaning the runner will receive $1,500 monthly as well as health coverage. Runners receive points based on how fast they run. “Basically, if I can’t hit the Olympic “A” standard of 2:11:29, I won’t get funding,” Watson says.

Without funding, Watson had to pay for his own ticket and hotel for Rotterdam. “I came up with the cash by using what little savings I had, maxing my credit cards and borrowing money from my parents,” Watson says. “Being 28 years old and having to ask for money from your parents is tough. I’m still paying off that Rotterdam trip.”

I have excerpted the above quote from an article on Rob as it is germane to the conversation. I don't post it to argue one side or the other - I just post it to provide some context for our discussion.

I suspect each of you will intepret his situation differently.

gender equity wrote:Just want to make it clear here that Canadian men had an easier standard than the women. 2:11:29 equals 2:32:23 on the Mercier calculator (based on several years of IAAF ranked performances), yet Canadian Athletes chose 2:29:55 for their women's standard. Had Canadian Athletics chosen equal gender times, both Lanni and Krista would (and should have) gone to the Olympics. They got jipped big time.

According to the IAAF points tables (which, unlike the Mercier tables, have been updated in the last decade), 2:11:31 for men is 1135 points and 2:11:27 is 1136 points.

For women, 1135 points is 2:29:48.

This is some solid trolling. Congratulations on your success in this endeavor; seems you are enjoying yourself.

hold the phone wrote:

According to the IAAF points tables (which, unlike the Mercier tables, have been updated in the last decade), 2:11:31 for men is 1135 points and 2:11:27 is 1136 points.

For women, 1135 points is 2:29:48.

The IAAF scoring tables also state their point system wasn't set up to compare between genders, only 'within' each gender.

"Due to obvious biological differences, it is not proposed to fully compare men's and women's performances. Thus, the system contains scoring tables for men's and women's events respectively."

The Mercier calculator was last updated in '09, and used an appropriate rank order method to compare between genders,

"The 2009 Mercier tables have been developped using the Mercier-Beauregard method (see here) and IAAF statistics from 2005, 2006, 2007 et 2008. The IAAF 2008 scores are taken from the tables used by the IAAF for world rankings (see here). It should be noted that only the Mercier tables have been developped to compare performances across genders."

I personally did an Excel spreadsheet with the IAAF ranked performances from 2008-11, and 2:11:29 for a man matches up with 2:33:49 for a woman. The amazing part is times are consistently matching up the same year after year, as both men's and women's depths are growing at the same rate. So I stand my ground that 2:29:55 was a much harder standard to achieve.

Ah, I stand corrected -- I hadn't seen that newer version of the Mercier calculator.

That being said, I'm not sure I agree that Mercier scale is any more valid than the IAAF tables for comparing genders. If you read through the methodology, you'll note that they combine male and female performances to populate the linear regression. That means there's one single set of points that correspond to each performance value: the men's scale is based on both men's and women's performances. Then, to create the women's scale, they simple apply an arbitrary linear shift:

"A Women's Only scoring table is obtained by a linear rescaling of the base tables: the associated scores/performances from the men's tables are adjusted by the following equation: Swomen = ( Smen + 370.23683 ) / 1.10218405."

Unless I'm dramatically misunderstanding something, this means that any comparison between men's and women's Mercier scores, in any event, is based on the totally arbitrary assumption that men are exactly (X+370)/1.1 times better than women. That may be a decent approximation averaged over all events, but it's no basis for Olympic selection!

Leaving that aside, you may well be right that the men's marathon standard was tougher than the women's, which is a bad thing -- and one of the strongest reasons that AC should stop making up its own damn standards and just use the international ones, to avoid second guessing.

For the record, as I'm sure your Excel spreadsheets revealed, Marchant and Duchene ranked 204th and 213th in the world last year, which is pretty similar to where Gillis would have ranked had he run his time in 2012. The 2:28:00 that Marchant just ran would have ranked her 99th last year.

While I think your quote makes a valid point about the difficulties of continuing in the sport as a professional when you aren't among the super-elite few who get big enough sponsorships to live on, Watson, like many others, chose this. He can quit at any time if he feels the financial hardship is too much for him, but he's obviously willing to make that sacrifice. He knows he's not going to get rich off of running. But he clearly feels like it's a worthwhile endeavour to do it anyway. If you read his blog you know he loves what he's doing.

Which is what I've been trying to make clear. Unless you are one of maybe ten North American runners (maybe fewer) in a given year, you're probably not going to get a major sponsorship deal. You'll likely have to work at least part-time to make ends meet. If you don't love it, it's pretty hard to keep going in those circumstances.

I'm not a proponent of unnecessarily putting your career on hold or crippling yourself financially in order to be a sub-elite. But I am a proponent of continuing to work hard at the activity you've already invested years in and seeing where that takes you. If continuing to run is going to negatively impact your life then you should definitely quit. But otherwise, I think it's worthwhile to continue to compete for the community aspects, the health benefits, the mental benefits, and because it gives you something outside of work and family for which to set goals and push your limits.

I realize I'm just repeating myself at this point, but wanted to bump this discussion up again, since I think it's a good one to have.