Out of interest- are they allowed to bring in 'subs' if the marathoners are injured. Remember Jack running Tokyo with a stressie and DNFing after a few km? Not good for the sport.
Andy Buchanan would monster the Paris course....
You’d hope so, but this is AA so the answer is no - especially as Andy isn’t MTC.
He’s managed by Nic and trains with MTC occasionally.
Out of interest- are they allowed to bring in 'subs' if the marathoners are injured. Remember Jack running Tokyo with a stressie and DNFing after a few km? Not good for the sport.
Andy Buchanan would monster the Paris course....
It is way more than interest!
From memory from the commentary at the Gold Coast Marathon races this weekend, Mona believes Andy B is the reserve for the Aussie men’s marathon trio for Paris.
If Brett’s scan comes back with an adverse finding, Andy B really must go to Paris. Transparency really needed!
For the men's marathon, can someone who has run 2:11:30 or better during the qualifying period be subbed-in via quota reallocation?
Or is that only where a Federation holds a selection trial, like the USA?
Yes they can
Someone once said: "Life wasn't meant to be easy".
They could just as well have said: “Understanding the Olympic marathon selection process wasn't meant to be easy”.
It feels like a long time ago but it seems like it went like this.
Following the “universality” debacle, World Athletics expanded the Paris men’s marathon field size from 80 to 84. That provided quota spots to an additional four athletes. One from each of Chile, South Africa, USA(Albertson) and Australia(Adams).
That move gave the USA and Australia three quota places. That in turn allowed the USA to nominate the top three men from their marathon trial for the Paris marathon. All of those selected had run faster than 2:11:30 in the qualifying period including Leonard Korir who finished 3rd in the trial race.
It appears that Australia could equally have nominated any three men who had run faster than 2:11:30 in the qualifying period including Andy Buchanan. Certainly, one journalist following the case closely believed that to be true. This is a quote from the article at the link below:
“Athletics Australia selectors could have used the third men's quota place to pick Andy Buchanan, given he had run quicker than 2:11:30 within the qualification period, but the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) confirmed the selection of Adams on Thursday.”
Given that Buchanan could have been nominated for selection to the team by AA, it is possible that Buchanan was (behind the scenes) nominated by AA as the “reserve” for the team in the event of injury, illness, accident etc befalling one of the nominated athletes.
Others on here are no doubt well qualified to advise if the above is a correct description of the situation.
Buchanan's coach has been reported by AA in the past as being Scott Westcott.
The WA website shows the "Athlete Representative" for Buchanan as Collis Birmingham. Birmingham is of course MTC. Looks like he is moving into manager/agent work as well as coaching.
The WA website shows the "Athlete Representative" for Buchanan as Collis Birmingham. Birmingham is of course MTC. Looks like he is moving into manager/agent work as well as coaching.
The WA website shows the "Athlete Representative" for Buchanan as Collis Birmingham. Birmingham is of course MTC. Looks like he is moving into manager/agent work as well as coaching.
For all we know Robbo is furiously taking his magnesium powder, tracking his whoop sleep scores and hitting the elliptical. But if the guy isn't running, perhaps hasn't for 2-3 weeks, and we are 4 weeks out from the marathon, he just can't compete well.
Does anyone know if the AOC just leaves that call to the athlete? Of course he'd want to run. Nike will pay him a load to do so. But when there's another healthy athlete who would do better in this situation- can they pull someone off the team? Is there precedent for this?
For all we know Robbo is furiously taking his magnesium powder, tracking his whoop sleep scores and hitting the elliptical. But if the guy isn't running, perhaps hasn't for 2-3 weeks, and we are 4 weeks out from the marathon, he just can't compete well.
Does anyone know if the AOC just leaves that call to the athlete? Of course he'd want to run. Nike will pay him a load to do so. But when there's another healthy athlete who would do better in this situation- can they pull someone off the team? Is there precedent for this?
I hope it’s his call. He earned the spot.
If it’s me I’d leave the decision as late as possible and if there’s any chance I can run them I’m going, even if I may not make the start line. It’s the Olympics so I’m being selfish. It sucks for whoever’s next in line but they should have run faster and controlled their own destiny.
