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

Um, I'm more than familiar with our fantastic five, and of course I'd love to see a Canadian 1-2-3 in London, but in Daegu it was only Armstrong in the medals. Here, let me help you out with a hard-to-find reference:

In the women's hurdles we got an admirable 6th and 7th in Daegu, but betting on medals from anyone other than Armstrong in the shot would be ignoring facts. And those were our ONLY finalists in the meet.

Your example countries all out-medalled us pretty significantly (AUS 3 medals, GBR 7). So, thanks. These are countries that can rightfully say "we send athletes with a chance at finals and medals." We are not there right now, and should be sending every A we've got, not keeping out two A marathoners and making our A-qualified sprinters and throwers jump through "B" hoops.

Now you're just playing dumb (I hope). Don't waste my time.

I am talking about the many countries (I think I said "overwhelming majority") who take an A as what it's meant to be, unlike Canada requiring a B as "back-up" from someone who already ran/jumped/threw and A IN THE OLYMPIC YEAR. Bahamas, with one bronze and three other finalists in Daegu, is a nearly dead-even comparison with Canada in results (slightly better). Do you think they make Bebbie Ferguson (6), Donald Thomas (HJ final) and Trevor Barry (bronze) pick up a B in June, or let them get on with training?

Hey, here are the countries that tied us in the medal table at Daegu (with one). How many do you think make their "A" qualifiers jump through hoops picking up Bs in June?

Croatia

Czech Republic

Estonia

Hungary

Kazakhstan

Norway

Puerto Rico

Sudan

Tunisia

Colombia

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Bahamas

Belgium

Iran

Italy

Latvia

Slovenia

Spain

Trinidad and Tobago

Zimbabwe

With the exception of Norway, all these countries are using tiny fractions of the resources to do as much as we are (one WC medal) on the big stage. And you think AC has it right? Getting out-medalled by South Africa? Cuba? BELARUS?

Face it, this "a little tougher" qualifying nonsense has had its chance, and failed miserably.

JUST LET THE As GO.

Get you act together, Canada wrote:

Reading through all of this, all I have to say it is just an absurd situation.

Canada is a big rich 1st world country. As a nation, it can easily afford to send as many athletes to the Olympics as meet the USOC/IAAF standards. The fact that it isn't doing this is pathetic, and would be very discouraging to me if I were a Canadian athlete.

CORRECT! Pathetic is a good word for it.

"All" my example countries? Including FR, NZ and NL?

Do you really think Canada is doing so badly? Look at our qualifiers so far. We've got sprinters, jumpers, throwers and distance runners. Several events have multiple qualifiers. How many countries have such across-the-board representation?

Really, I'm confused. Are we currently discussing marathon standards (for which many countries beyond Canada have tougher-than-IAAF times, including countries like powerhouse Netherlands whose times are even harder)? Or is it the repeat performance criteria?

If the former, then we've got many examples similar to Canada. If the latter, many other countries as well use criteria like 'top 8 potential' in picking their teams. Several have been explicitly linked in this thread.

The Canadian repeat performance criteria are currently only affecting two athletes: Fritzell for whom I think it is unreasonable to not recognize her March A+, and Aaron Brown.

For Brown, do you really think so little of him that you don't think that he can run a single B standard between April 1 and June 30 since he's shown he has the fitness to drop an A standard? If you are all about the medals, do you think that someone who runs a single A and is unable to run a single additional B has the potential to medal?

You've listed many countries but haven't provided a link to any of their criteria that says they are all fine with a single A performance. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. But if you are going to definitively claim you know their criteria, why can't you provide a cite? Please see AU, UK, NZ and FR criteria posted previously.

So you are all about the medals now? Have you been drinking the OTP Kool-Aid?

Since a single medalist can be an outlier (as can be seen by how many other potential medalists any of your listed countries have), wouldn't a better metric be to compare how many athletes each of those countries sent or how many made finals or placed in the top half of the field vs Canadian numbers?

I think "Um Yeah" mentioned sports tourism before. No federation should be promoting that.

I liken it to athletes who fly to Mt. SAC or Stanford to run 14:30. What is the point? Run 14:05 at home, and then spend the money to fly across North America.

Similarly, what is the benefit of having a marathoner finish 40-50th AT BEST? How does that, "experience" differ from say running a top tier marathon anywhere else in the world?

IAAF has an agenda too - they want as many athletes as possible to show up. A 2:33 woman marathoner will be an afterthought in the race, but creates a better spectacle. National federations are not about adding bodies to "the spectacle". Their motivation is to place atheltes as high as possible.

If an athlete is close to the standard e.g. 2:31 vs 2:29, then s/he should 1) ensure they are in shape to easily hit the standard and 2) find a race where it can happen. Who is responsible for unforseen circumstnces e.g. wind at the Waterfront marathon in TO? here is a really "UnCanadian" answer ....the athlete....enough excuses already. My god...

Why are athletes painted as victims here? These standards are not new, nor have they been a secret.

Unions will Kill Us wrote:

Similarly, what is the benefit of having a marathoner finish 40-50th AT BEST? How does that, "experience" differ from say running a top tier marathon anywhere else in the world?

I don't think Canada would be promoting "sports tourism" by sending Lanni and Krista to London. The 2:31:50 to 2:32:10 range, which they both ran in Rotterdam, would put them around the top 10 at Atlanta, top 20 at Sydney, top 20 at Athens, and top 10 at Beijing. My understanding was that Canada's standards are meant to send people who are capable of at least top 16 performances. These sound like top 16 capabilities.

So not "40-50th at best." The depth will not be that much greater at London that you can claim that. There are not going to be 40-50 women running under 2:32 at the Olympics. The fact that Lanni and Krista did that on demand, having never run anywhere near that fast before, is very impressive.

I don't think they should be sent to London (even though I would really love to see them go). They didn't hit the standard. They knew the standard going into the race, they went for it, and they fell short. Until Rotterdam, I would not have said either of them were long-shots at standard, I would have said they had no shot at all. They both stepped up big and it's great to see.

And to prevent this kind of stupidity from happening again, Canada should rethink its standards/selection methods for the future.

Yes, we do. All of them IN SPITE OF the best efforts of Athletics Canada and their "A+" or "A and also a B" or "A+ is good but not in March" nonsense, which you alone seem hellbent on defending. You say you don't work for AC, but you are the only person I've found in the sport (and I know many) who doesn't work for AC and would go to the mat defending the repeat-B requirement. The marathon A+, fine. Are you sure your relationship with AC isn't a little cozier than you've implied?

Australia? The UK? France? You mean countries with more than one medal in the last championship? (AUS 3, UK 7, France 4 - including a relay!) As I've said over and over, those are countries that have a good enough "top tier" to justify added selectivity. Face it, we're not in the same class as them. As I said, and as you ignored, compare to the other one-medal, two-finals countries. You won't find many that are making 2012 A qualifiers jump through B hoops.

Listen: I have advocated to let Brown proceed with his training and competition schedule, rather than having to worry about what happens if something goes wrong and he doesn't (re)qualify. For you to pretend this is about "how little I think of him" is so rhetorically dishonest, so low, so slimy that it actually disgusts me. Just pathetic. (Now I REALLY know you work for the bureaucracy.) I honestly hope for your sake that you are embarrassed to have spouted this, but I am afraid that maybe you are really starting to show the kind of person you are with bile like this. You ought to apologize.

Different league. Irrelevant. This is like arguing that Estonia should use Canada's criteria in selecting their hockey team. Compare to the countries on our level. Our equals (see list of 20 mostly-tiny countries above) and even many of our betters with far smaller budgets (Belarus, Cuba) don't insist A athletes re-qualifying with a B.

You still haven't answered, by the way. Is the repeat performance to select a better team? Or is it assumed that all As can easily get another B (and therefore pointless)? You can't have it both ways. Please answer this time. Don't dodge, don't pretend I insulted Canadian athletes by saying an A should be enough. Just answer. Really.

Yes, I'm quite sure about my relationship (or lack thereof) with AC.

I'm also not 'going to the mat' defending them but pointing out to those blinded by the 'it's a disgrace' verbiage that they really aren't all that unreasonable.

Yes, repeat performance requirements are tougher than having to do a single performance, but no one has to do an A+ time and other than Fritzell (discounting her 2012 A+ is not something that makes sense to me), we are left with a single affected athlete (Brown).

Again with the medal fixation. You sure you aren't advocating for OTP?

Let's look at some more Olympic numbers, say the number of competitors at the 2008 Games (where Canada had similar criteria).

Canada had 18 males and 11 females.

AU had 21 and 16.

NZ had 4 and 6.

FR had 21 and 19.

NL had 7 and 4.

Norway had 5 and 3.

DE had 18 and 24.

So those countries you say have way better athletes are sending pretty much the same number as Canada.

For 2012, assuming they make top 3 at the Trials (and only counting 3 out of 5 hurdlers), Canada has already qualified 16 males and 10 (with addition of Stellingwerf) females, so it's looking very likely we'll surpass out 2008 totals.

I would hope his competition schedule expects he'll be running multiple B standards, regardless of whether or not they are qualification requirements. I'm sure he'd be worried if he couldn't.

See above with respect to team sizes. Pretty much the same league (except for those countries like NL, NZ and Norway).

Based on what it says in the AC criteria, it seems pretty clear the intent is to select a better team. You can look it up.

in the know? me too wrote:

You still haven't answered, by the way. Is the repeat performance to select a better team? Or is it assumed that all As can easily get another B (and therefore pointless)? You can't have it both ways. Please answer this time. Don't dodge, don't pretend I insulted Canadian athletes by saying an A should be enough. Just answer. Really.

Um, yeah wrote:

Yes, repeat performance requirements are tougher than having to do a single performance

Based on what it says in the AC criteria, it seems pretty clear the intent is to select a better team. You can look it up.

Waaaaaaait a second. Hold the phone! You can't be serious! I'm pretty certain thought you said that meeting the repeat performance was a triviality for an A qualifier. I think you said "not particularly onerous." "Measly B" was your phrase, right?

NOW, you're saying that the intent of repeat performance criterion is to CHANGE THE MAKEUP OF THE TEAM?

At least get the AC party line right before you try parroting it, toadie. It's either trivial OR it can be expected to impact on selection. It can't be both. You have been saying the former and now are over to the latter.

Face it: you're all over the map on this B issue. I suspect the reason is that it's basically indefensible to make A and even "A+" qualifiers from this season repeatedly qualify with Bs.

JUST LET THE As GO.

They aren't mutually exclusive statements.

Yes, the repeat performance criteria is to limit, somewhat (not 'change') the team.

But you seem to have stated previously that for someone like Brown, you believe he should be capable of hitting a B, hence while being tougher, it is not particularly onerous.

I get that you don't like the repeat performance criteria. But it apparently is not as terrible and punishing as you want to make it out to be since we are still only talking about two affected athletes, Fritzell (with whom I agree with you that it doesn't make sense to discount her 2012 A+) and Brown.

It's not like we're anywhere near the 5 - 10 athletes you have previously bleated about and you yourself have stated you have confidence Brown can pick up his needed B (presumably Fritzell as well).

Um, yeah wrote:

Waaaaaaait a second. Hold the phone! You can't be serious! I'm pretty certain thought you said that meeting the repeat performance was a triviality for an A qualifier. I think you said "not particularly onerous." "Measly B" was your phrase, right?

NOW, you're saying that the intent of repeat performance criterion is to CHANGE THE MAKEUP OF THE TEAM?

in the know? me too wrote: the repeat performance criteria is to limit, somewhat (not 'change') the team.

Priceless. (Did you say you work in Ottawa at some point? Because I haven't seen doublespeak like that in years.)

So, the purpose of the added criteria is to LIMIT the team. But NOT to change it??? Dude. You've got to know that sounds pretty incoherent. Limiting the team obviously changes it. But you know that.

I'm ready to shut this one down, with you as the first non-AC staffer I've meet to support the A-plus-repeat-B nonsense.

To sum up: You want to limit (but not change!) the team size by keeping As home unless they hit repeat Bs (or an A+). I want send all the top-3 As.

I'll revisit this thread after London. I hope that we have more than three finals to talk about from our all-new, A+, own-the-podium, limited-size team.

No, nothing to do with Ottawa.

In the future, please don't reverse the quote attributions.

Yes. If it sounds incoherent to you, this may help:

"verb (used with object)

7. to restrict by or as if by establishing limits (usually followed by to ): Please limit answers to 25 words. "

and

"3. to substitute another or others for; exchange for something else, usually of the same kind: She changed her shoes when she got home from the office. "

For the standard to CHANGE the team would mean that some who are on the team are taken off and replaced by others who have not otherwise qualified. This is not happening.

The team is being LIMITED by not selecting athletes who have achieved a single B standard or have not achieved a qualifying performance in 2012 (eg Ellerton).

And to repeat, since it is so important to you, it is also limiting Fritzell (unfairly) if she don't throw two Bs or Brown if at either NCs or the Trials or any other high level meet he might have planned, he is unable to hit a B standard.

It's kind of annoying having to repeatedly explain this to you, but there is a difference between 'going to the mat' and supporting the criteria versus accepting that they are generally reasonable and fair criteria.

If I were to do it from scratch, I'd likely have it open to more athletes. But all things considered, the criteria and standards that are in place are not anywhere near as totalitarian as you'd like to portray them as.

So again, to sum up, our only real difference of opinion is with regards to Brown since we already agree on Fritzell. No one else is being affected by this requirement.

I thought you were 'in the know' so should have been aware that tougher-than-IAAF standards are not a new concept. They were crazy-hard and confusing in 2004 but what we have now is a lot more understandable and achievable.

And you are still going on about A+? No one is being forced to hit A+ standards. That's been explained to you many times before so one can only surmise from your continued raising of it that you aren't really interested in having a coherent discussion on standards but rather like complaining for the sake of complaining. For the benefit of anyone still following this thread, I'll just assume that any time you mention A+ again that you're just being silly and won't bother dragging things out.

probably not quite wrote:I don't think Canada would be promoting "sports tourism" by sending Lanni and Krista to London. The 2:31:50 to 2:32:10 range, which they both ran in Rotterdam, would put them around the top 10 at Atlanta, top 20 at Sydney, top 20 at Athens, and top 10 at Beijing.

This is false logic. Running those times at this year's Rotterdam does not equate to running those times (and achieving those places) at those OG marathons.

I said it equated to the ability to run a top 10-20 time on demand, which, whether your "logic" likes it or not, they did. That happened for reals.

Their times are equal to top 10-20 times at the last 4 Olympic Games marathons. Running that time doesn't equate to running 10-20th at London, but it does make them capable of of it. This holds true for many of the other women going. Can you provide me a logical reason why they are not capable of that? Of course you can't, because I'm correct. You didn't provide any reason why I should pay any attention to your post other than that it addressed me. Your argument has failed. Farewell.

probably not quite wrote:

I said it equated to the ability to run a top 10-20 time on demand, which, whether your "logic" likes it or not, they did. That happened for reals.

Their times are equal to top 10-20 times at the last 4 Olympic Games marathons. Running that time doesn't equate to running 10-20th at London, but it does make them capable of of it. This holds true for many of the other women going. Can you provide me a logical reason why they are not capable of that? Of course you can't, because I'm correct. You didn't provide any reason why I should pay any attention to your post other than that it addressed me. Your argument has failed. Farewell.

Check the weather conditions at start and finish in those years and then rethink.

Like I said, I support this criterion:

A = qualification.

You support these:

A+ = qualification.

A + B = qualification.

A = S.O.L.

I think an athlete who is the best in the country and who "only" has an A can make a massive contribution to the team and shouldn't have to prove that with repeated Bs.

You think that repeated Bs are important and are great because the will "limit" the team. At the same time, you think it is "easy" for any A-standard athlete to get. You continue to ignore this obvious contradiction.

Looks like you're pretty convinced that repeat performance criteria will get our best team possible, without impacting in any way on selection. (???)

Anyway, I'll be hoping for more than three finals this time...

All quotes attributed to Kevin Sullivan:

"Looking at these standards and repeat performance, I would say this is the 'easiest' Olympic qualifying process since 2000. Looks to me as if AC recoginzes that with an early Olympics that preparation time is key and is trying to AVOID putting undue stress on athletes chasing standards."

"I think the difficulty in getting into races is the real limiting factor in Oly qualifying not the standards or repeat performace standards."

"As for repeating performances, I know from my own experiences that if I was running A standard performances, I wasn't even concerned with a B standard. I felt it was just a given that it was going to happen so I think I took a lot of the pressure of myself in that sense. I think you'll find your mindset about running a repeat 'B' will change once you hit the 'A' standard. 'B' standard won't seem near as big a barrier at that point."

For full context:

http://can.milesplit.com/discussion/topics/92402

So Kevin says the "B" is meaningless , because of your fitness "it was just a given". So Athletics Canada will keep the B requirement because it will make the Team stronger ?

Patrick Euwing wrote:

So Kevin says the "B" is meaningless , because of your fitness "it was just a given". So Athletics Canada will keep the B requirement because it will make the Team stronger ?

Exactly.

??? is the only logical reaction to these contradictory arguments.

Kevin and "Um, yeah" say it's nothing to pick up the repeat B once you have the A, but can't seem to explain why it should then be kept as a criteria. Can't be both "easy" for A-qualifiers and likely to improve the team beyond the A standard.

Um, yeah wrote:

In terms of probable finals with Canadian content, I'd suggest 100mH, wH, wHep, m10,000, mMar, mSP, mDec, mHJ. Also lesser chances of m1500 or m200. Then there's the w4x400 (ranked about 9th) or m4x100. I'd say that's more than 3.

Damn, man. You ARE deluded.

You think each of these is "probable"?