Act like you are the British Olympic women's team selectors, pick 2 of the following 3 women for the Olympic team

I would play, but I already know, so I'll just add one detail.

The non picked runner obviously feels that she should have been. She is appealing the selection.

I don't know if I would've picked A.

Sure, she finished two races in the last 7 month:

A mediocre 33:38 road 10k in Switzerland, where she got destroyed by not only Schlumpf, but also Scherrer. That was preparation for her London DNF.

And then recently an abysmal 16:20 track 5k, 16 seconds behind Jaci Smith(!).

Runner A - last good result January 2020

Runner B - last good result February 2020

Runner C - last good result November 2019

Neither woman has advanced their cause recently, having said that, nobody bar the winner of the trial put their hand up despite having designated pacers and presumably the advantage of the latest shoe technology.

I'm sure fitness will have to be demonstrated sooner or later

I was surprised Runner A was picked. She'd already made it clear she had given up on the marathon and was prioritising the 10,000m. I think if she makes the team in the 10k, she will withdraw from the marathon as her heart isn't really in it.

Of the other two, I would have went with Runner B for her superior competition experience. But... Runner B is notoriously flakey, dropping out of competitions quite regularly and DNFing, and she has been injured for some time.

The hard fact is, they could all have run the trials and guaranteed their place. They all had better PBs than the winner. All three took a gamble and they were kind of fortunate that only one person hit the standard on the day. I also can't see how an appeal would succeed - can you honestly see the selectors taking back an Olympic place from someone after announcing it publicly?

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works. Runner C's course was short by approximately 500m, due to an issue with the course on the day. This was heavily covered up by race organisers, but everybody who attended or ran the course that day, knows that runners were diverted, and while an admiral performance and certainly out of her control, this should absolutely be taken into account.

I hope that the runner that was ridiculously left off the team for the second Olympics in a row (the fact she left the UK Athletics setup to train overseas is no coincidence in this), has her appeal heard fairly and independently. This was a disgraceful decision comparable to that of Japan's team in the 2015 World Champs.

OG Coconino Cowboy wrote:

I'm going to throw a spanner in the works. Runner C's course was short by approximately 500m, due to an issue with the course on the day. This was heavily covered up by race organisers, but everybody who attended or ran the course that day, knows that runners were diverted, and while an admiral performance and certainly out of her control, this should absolutely be taken into account.

I hope that the runner that was ridiculously left off the team for the second Olympics in a row (the fact she left the UK Athletics setup to train overseas is no coincidence in this), has her appeal heard fairly and independently. This was a disgraceful decision comparable to that of Japan's team in the 2015 World Champs.

So they picked A and C .

I didn't know all of the details that some of the Brits.

It amazes me that both B and C are in such bad current form. If C's marathon time was 500 meters short, she shouldn't be on it. Imean that's pretty clear cut othewise her PB is way slower.

But I also didn't know that A has given up on the marathon.

I definitely would have picked B over C, even without the course issue. If both are in bad form, I’m picking the one who has at least put together 6 finishes over her career.

Runner A looks a lot like Julia Bleasdale...

11 years after her great time, I don't think I'd be discussing Bleasdale.

This is only partly true. The Florence Marathon course was diverted due to a gas leak in 2019. But only after the top 42 runners had finished. Jess Piasecki (Runner C) finished 11th overall (1st woman).

It's weird that Piasecki wasn't asked to prove fitness before selection. Callum Hawkins was pre-selected and had to use the trials to prove fitness. Piasecki hasn't raced at all since 2019 and it's not like there haven't been opportunities in the UK - Marc Scott, Ben Connor, Lily Partridge, and Mo Farah all ran the Antrim HM late last year for example.

I still think both Piasecki and Charlotte Purdue (Runner B) should have been selected. Steph Twell (Runner A) was fit for the trials but chose not to compete to focus on the 10k.

I had a look to see the short course, for instance if it was on a Strava profile. I looked at the RunBritain results for the event to see if any runners I follow raced there

https://www.runbritainrankings.com/results/results.aspx?meetingid=332977&event=Mar&venue=Florence%2c+ITA&date=24-Nov-19

There’s a note and link to a facebook post by the Florence organisers. My Italian is non existant but I think it says the first 60x entrants ran the correct route?

Have a look at her splits and let me know know if anything sticks out to you?

Furthermore, have a look at the splits of the Rwandan athlete running next to her. There's absolutely no way those splits are natural.

This is the Strava results of the guy that finished eighth.

So the fact that it is short, is slightly suspicious in itself, but what is very unusual, is that in his official race splits, he maintained his pace at 17.21 through 35km to 40km, while, in his Strava file, the closest I can possibly get to equating the same 5k split, is 17.50. Combine this with the fact he's missing at least 110 metres, providing he ran every tangent to perfection and didn't veer for water, there is a minute.

Not even going to debate Strava posts. GPS distances are almost always bogus.

Looking at the splits from the timing mats for Piasecki and the athletes who finished around her, there's nothing suspicious at all. There's variation in when people slowed down and speed up. If the course was short at any point, then all runners would have a consistently fast split at the point where the course was short e.g. at 35km, but they don't. Instead, you see variation in the fast splits. I don't know about you, but my marathon splits after halfway go all over the place. I surge in places where it's easy or if I'm feeling good, back off if I feel it's getting too much.

runderun wrote:

Not even going to debate Strava posts. GPS distances are almost always bogus.

Looking at the splits from the timing mats for Piasecki and the athletes who finished around her, there's nothing suspicious at all. There's variation in when people slowed down and speed up. If the course was short at any point, then all runners would have a consistently fast split at the point where the course was short e.g. at 35km, but they don't. Instead, you see variation in the fast splits. I don't know about you, but my marathon splits after halfway go all over the place. I surge in places where it's easy or if I'm feeling good, back off if I feel it's getting too much.

You're welcome to ignore Strava splits. However, saying that there's nothing suspicious about those splits it's simply confirmation bias of your own stance. The fact that nearly everyone in the top 200 runners was significantly quicker between 30k and 40k, particularly between 35k and 40k, is extremely suspicious.

Would Natasha Cockram have been able to make it based on World Rankings? Everybody on that list has flaws with inconsistencies. I guess I would be fine with A based on the talent. Selecting teams is really silly when you hold a Trials that is kind of sort of a Trials.

I have no bias in this, I already said I would have picked Purdue over Piasecki. But the top 200 runners are irrelevant since the organisers said the route change did not affect the top 42 runners.

I went through the top 20 finishers and couldn't find more than two that increased pace significantly for either their 35km or 40km splits. If you can find more than that, please post their names here. I'm not sure why you wouldn't expect well trained athletes to either maintain pace or speed up a little for their last 6 miles anyway, that's the part most of us train for.

runderun wrote:

I have no bias in this, I already said I would have picked Purdue over Piasecki. But the top 200 runners are irrelevant since the organisers said the route change did not affect the top 42 runners.

I went through the top 20 finishers and couldn't find more than two that increased pace significantly for either their 35km or 40km splits. If you can find more than that, please post their names here. I'm not sure why you wouldn't expect well trained athletes to either maintain pace or speed up a little for their last 6 miles anyway, that's the part most of us train for.

The two I'm referring to are Piasecki and Baptiste who finished with the same time so I'm guessing were running together, and you would expect them to have the same paces. To take a couple of other examples: Marc Hobbs finished after Piasecki and died a little between 30 and 40km (around 10 seconds per km), Clemens Bleistein finished ahead of Piasecki and more or less even split the last 12km of the race.

So, if you really think Piasecki's result is suspicious, you have to argue that the course was diverted for about 2 minutes to allow her and Baptiste to gain an advantage and nobody else. It's ridiculous.

NERunner00053 wrote:

Would Natasha Cockram have been able to make it based on World Rankings? Everybody on that list has flaws with inconsistencies. I guess I would be fine with A based on the talent. Selecting teams is really silly when you hold a Trials that is kind of sort of a Trials.

No, no British runner could make it based on rankings. Shame, as she's worked so hard the last couple of years to improve and she missed it by 40 seconds

I just feel the selectors always make odd decisions.