Abbey Caldwell makes the Aussie selectors look like fools - Bronze in 1500 at CGs!!

rojo wrote:

I went ballistic the first time I heard about it. Go listen to the podcast. She won the damn trials. She then hit the standard. Everyone knew that meant you should be on the team. I'm glad an Aussie says 40 years of precedent back me up.

Peach Pit wrote:

To add to this, on the coffee club pod, they said Abbey/her coach were told by an official that if she won/got the standard later, she would be on the team.

rojo wrote:

Can someone confirm the following things?

1) Was Caldwell offered a Puma contract by Nic Bideau that she declined?
2) Did Georgia Griffith signed a Puma contract offered to her by Nic Bideau?
3) Was Nic Bideau involved in selecting the 1500 team?

Three simple questions.

While your at, can you tell me who picked the team and did they ever provide an explanation?

I can TOTALLY understand why they thought 3 women would do better than Caldwell at Worlds. I dont really care. The preceived conflict of interest - whether real or not - really bad and want national champs to matter.

rojo wrote:

What are you talking about? Hindsight?

I went ballistic the first time I heard about it. Go listen to the podcast. She won the damn trials. She then hit the standard. Everyone knew that meant you should be on the team. I'm glad an Aussie says 40 years of precedent back me up.

Lopez Lomong fan club wrote:

Caldwell wasn't even meant to be at the Commonwealth Games.

It was a "compromise" offered to her during the appeals process in exchange for dropping any legal action, in the hope that her coach and family would not comment further publicly.

Her coach and group accepted the spot (as the World Championships were just two weeks away), continued to call AA out on their garbage and then Caldwell won a medal. Brilliant.

Yikes That's Fast wrote:

rojo wrote:

What are you talking about? Hindsight?

I went ballistic the first time I heard about it. Go listen to the podcast. She won the damn trials. She then hit the standard. Everyone knew that meant you should be on the team. I'm glad an Aussie says 40 years of precedent back me up.

You can't blame Rojo for not being on top of the Abbey Caldwell situation. Look at the title of the article he and Gault wrote in May. Rojo, Gault, me, Abbey, and everyone else all thought she was on the World Championship team.

Link:www.letsrun.com/news/2022/05/2022-usat...

rojo wrote:

Can someone confirm the following things?

1) Was Caldwell offered a Puma contract by Nic Bideau that she declined?
2) Did Georgia Griffith signed a Puma contract offered to her by Nic Bideau?
3) Was Nic Bideau involved in selecting the 1500 team?

Three simple questions.

While your at, can you tell me who picked the team and did they ever provide an explanation?

I can TOTALLY understand why they thought 3 women would do better than Caldwell at Worlds. I dont really care. The preceived conflict of interest - whether real or not - really bad and want national champs to matter.

lawyer Joe wrote:

Lopez Lomong fan club wrote:

Caldwell wasn't even meant to be at the Commonwealth Games.

It was a "compromise" offered to her during the appeals process in exchange for dropping any legal action, in the hope that her coach and family would not comment further publicly.

Her coach and group accepted the spot (as the World Championships were just two weeks away), continued to call AA out on their garbage and then Caldwell won a medal. Brilliant.

On top of this, AA changed the appeals process in the selection criteria when this whole ordeal was unfolding so that appeals were no longer considered by a panel, but by one individual.

rojo wrote:

At age 20, she won the Aussie champs earlier this year. Then she hit the standard. Then she was left off the Worlds team even though everyone though Aussie champ + standard eaualled auto spot (but it came out if you read it closely you had to have the standard ahead of time).

Guess who got the medal today?

Non Linden Hall. Not Jessica Hull. Abbey Caldwell.

Aussies, did a committee make the decision? Nic Bideau? Who?

I heard her family was in the stands with "Team Caldwell" tshirts. I'd like to buy one. Anyone know what they look like?

Well done.

Just sayin'. wrote:

Karma Police wrote:

And you know, just maybe the fact that Hall and Hull backed up from 3 rounds at Worlds had a negative effect on their performance 10 days later at Comm Games. Just maybe, huh?

Caldwell on the other hand trained through and was peaking for Comm Games.

So, doesn't negate the fact she should have gone to World Champs, which is what the drama was all about.

oaclover420 wrote:

Shoutout to Nic Bideau who had pretty much all his athletes underperform and look totally cooked at both comms and WCs. He can bang on about having so many athletes on national teams but it doesn't mean anything if they run like garbage.

Lopez Lomong fan club wrote:

oaclover420 wrote:

Shoutout to Nic Bideau who had pretty much all his athletes underperform and look totally cooked at both comms and WCs. He can bang on about having so many athletes on national teams but it doesn't mean anything if they run like garbage.

Weirdly enough, the one athlete that exceeded expectations? Georgia Griffiths. Ran really well in Eugene, and her 800 time in Birmingham was excellent given she's clearly now at 1500m athlete.

But the rest of Bideau's athletes (including Diver unfortunately, who I really like), horrifically underperformed.

Caldwell though, should be so, so proud of what she achieved.

Da4:02Miler wrote:

lawyer Joe wrote:

On top of this, AA changed the appeals process in the selection criteria when this whole ordeal was unfolding so that appeals were no longer considered by a panel, but by one individual.

My favourite thing about the "one person panel" was that the requirement to be selected to the panel of one is that the arbiter is required to know about the athletics OR the law - ideally both, but not exclusively both. So essentially, anyone with a passing interest in Athletics would be theoretically qualified to be selected into the one person arbitration committee AA is a joke.