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

Being letsrunners love analogies and canadians love hockey... This NHL season, the Vancouver Canucks made the playoffs and went out in the first round. (I know they were a top seed, but just imagine any pro team with a first round playoff exit.)

Would you rather have watched your team, the Canucks, lose in the first round or have had them not even make the playoffs? I think every person would rather have their team make the postseason and cheer for them even if they did get an early elimination.

Not to mention, it's usually only the true fans who watch early qualifying rounds of track, so if a Canadian got out early, the general public might not even know about it and it wouldn't hurt the public's view of AC. So the only harm would be the cost to send the athlete, and being we're only talking about a few athletes, it's not much money.

I read the whole thread and it seems like if you have to defend it so much, it's just wrong. Also I don't get why people aren't more pissed about the women's marathoners who are 5 minutes under the IAAF standard and can't go because AC has a "rising star" category for all events but that. Sending the athlete to the olympics would likely result in more sponsorship money for the athlete, allowing them to focus more on future training and they would be more likely to hit the A+ standard to qualify for future championship events.

Canada has the 10th largest economy in the world, and the 7th highest median household income. There is no question that if Canada got its act together it could afford to send every athlete who qualifies to the Olympics. Whether it's public or private Canadian money, the money is out there if people would only develop interest, support, and sponsors.

Based on this thread, I assume Canada can't get its act together because Canadian athletics is dominated by short-sighted bureaucrats who are more interested in figuring out how to exclude athletes instead of how to send them to the Olympics. The stuff in this thread makes the USATF look sensible and transparent, which is really saying something, but at least the USATF sends everyone who qualifies.

When you look around the NCAA and see so many great Canadian athletes being developed by the US university system, it's just a shame that Canada isn't doing everything it can to give these athletes a chance to move on and compete at an Olympic level.

Pathetic bureaucrats

It looks to me like the Canadian Olympic Track and Field Team selection process has changed very little since I was competing there in the early 1960s.

The goal of every country is to maximize its total number of medals : participant ratio. You can do this like the USA by developing better talent. Or like Canada you can do this by limiting the number of athletes you send.

Disrespect wrote:

The goal of every country is to maximize its total number of medals : participant ratio. You can do this like the USA by developing better talent. Or like Canada you can do this by limiting the number of athletes you send.

I think the goal of every country is to maximize the total number of medals. Period (full stop?).

Participant ratio has nothing to do with it. You maximize the number of medals by maximizing the number of participants.

Agreed with the previous poster who said that people care about TOTAL MEDALS, not some silly ratio.

Furthermore, I'm glad not to live in such a culture where people are worried about tourist Olympians. If someone meets an Olympic standard, determined by the international body who sets the standards, and is considered (by qualification or other subjective means) to be one of the top "x" individuals (however many their sport allows to the Olympics) in that event in their nation, then I wholeheartedly support them going to the Olympics. I don't care if it's track, curling, synchronized swimming, or rugby.

The US curling team sucks. Would I support my tax dollars going to help fund their Olympic ass-kicking in 2014? Hell yes I would. If they've qualified for the Olympics according to the curling guidelines, then by all means I think they deserve to go.

D1 Bro wrote:

Also I don't get why people aren't more pissed about the women's marathoners who are 5 minutes under the IAAF standard and can't go because AC has a "rising star" category for all events but that.

HOLY CRAP.

Are you serious? I didn't know this. I was already pissed of enough that several of our A qualifiers won't be going. Now I find out that there's a "rising star" category...but only for some events??? Seriously AC, WTF?

george oscar bluth wrote:

Agreed with the previous poster who said that people care about TOTAL MEDALS, not some silly ratio.

Yup. Everyone except Athletics Canada. They apparently love the ratio enough to keep A-qualifiers home if they are judged to be unlikely to medal.

george oscar bluth wrote:

The US curling team sucks. Would I support my tax dollars going to help fund their Olympic ass-kicking in 2014? Hell yes I would. If they've qualified for the Olympics according to the curling guidelines, then by all means I think they deserve to go.

I love it! Great analogy. I think most of the public in the US or Canada would get behind that.

But you see, when asked to defend this crap in the media (which of course they are asked to do every games), AC has this easily-digestible line for the reporters. It goes "we're going to compete, not to participate."

Well guess what, guys? Getting out of quarters in the 100, getting into finals in a field event, finishing 25th in the Olympic marathon, IS COMPETING.

I grew up in elite sport (not track), and when I was young one of the "big kids" made an Olympic team. Barely, but was top in the country and in a sport that didn't keep A qualifiers home. Came 11th-20th, probably, but it was the greatest thing in the world to see someone from your country and development system, following your program, go and COMPETE in the Olympics. This "participant" probably did more to retain kids (some who became elites) in the sport than 99% of of top-down federal initiatives. Money well spent, most would say, but they got no medal so by AC standards I guess this athlete "didn't compete." But here's the fun part: they medalled in the next games. And said loud and clear it wouldn't have happened without the previous experience.

THINK, AC. JUST THINK.

This is the critical point. We're not talking about the 1 unqualified athlete that little island countries get send.

Anyone who has the A standard in a sport is not just engaged in sports tourism or "participating." They are competing. And if they can't medal at one Olympics, they get the experience and confidence and credentials that make it possible to improve and have a better shot at a medal at the next Olympics.

In any case, I don't think the Olympic ideal is that only the top handful of athletes show up. If that were the case you could avoid every heat in the 100m and go straight to a final with Bolt, Powell, Gay, Blake or whoever the top 8 sprinters are. As much as possible all different countries should be represented by their best athletes, as long as they meet the standard.

Don't know if it has been mentioned yet, but if Matt Centrowitz was Canadian he wouldn't have been good enough to go to last year's World Championhips.

The reason it hasn't been mentioned yet is because it is not true.

Centrowitz had at least a couple As in addition to winning the US champs.

From an earlier post it looked like the athletes had to post 3 fast times with at least one being an A and two being a B.

Centro posted two A times in July but no other fast times for the year before Worlds.

Maybe two A times would be enough without a third B or better. I didn't see anything that looked clear.

And it looks like someone like Manzano wouldn't have a shot at the Olympics this year.

Has an A standard from last year but none this year to date and won't by June 30th.

* wrote:

From an earlier post it looked like the athletes had to post 3 fast times with at least one being an A and two being a B.

Centro posted two A times in July but no other fast times for the year before Worlds.

For 2011:

All other track events: A + B between May 19 and Aug 6, 2011.

What did you read that wasn't clear?

Disrespect wrote:

The goal of every country is to maximize its total number of medals : participant ratio.

Bahahahahaha.

If you did a study of US track and field medalists at the WC and Olympics, I wonder how many had prior experience at WC or Olympics where they didn't medal? I bet a large percentage.

For example, with Jenny Simpson, she had previously competed at 2 world championships and the Beijing Olympics before medaling in Daegu. I doubt she would say that she was just a "participant" engaging in "athletic tourism" in Osaka, Beijing, and Berlin. I'm sure she would say that she was building on the experience and confidence she gained from the previous WC and Olympics when she medaled in Daegu. You could come up with lots of examples like that with US athletes.

Canada is depriving its athletes of that kind of experience and confidence by not sending everyone who qualifies.

Sorry, new to the discussion. Exactly which athletes with the A (pending a top 3 finish at trials), other than the marathoners, is AC not sending?

Fyi, Centro ran two A's after winning his national meet. He would have only needed two B's to qualify as a Rising Star for Dageu - remember that there was standard-chasing allowed last year. His 3:34's would also be an A+ so he would be set this year with his B last weekend.

Hilarious, right?

True. Athletic Canada's shortsighted criteria would keep an athlete off the team who could almost certainly trounce Canada's best in his event.

Great example, and of course, there are many, many more. Name a Canadian medallist, and I'll name an event they went to and didn't get top-10 or top-12 or whatever the bureaucrats have decided is good enough. Good investment, I'd say. But you have to be able to see beyond this summer to get that.

thirty two wrote:

Sorry, new to the discussion. Exactly which athletes with the A (pending a top 3 finish at trials), other than the marathoners, is AC not sending?

Fyi, Centro ran two A's after winning his national meet. He would have only needed two B's to qualify as a Rising Star for Dageu - remember that there was standard-chasing allowed last year. His 3:34's would also be an A+ so he would be set this year with his B last weekend.

Hilarious.

Why is it that AC defenders love to say "just read the criteria; the document it only 10 pages and super easy to find on the Trials website." (It's not, by the way.)

...but when it comes to IDing the athletes with an A who could be left behind, they feign ignorance. (I hope they're feigning anyway.)

Here is the "athlete tracker" - front and centre on the Trials website (where the qualifying criteria are buried somewhere, I guess).

There seem to be five A athletes (plus the three marathoners) who will currently be left behind even with the A and top-three at trials.