Letter to Doug Logan from Kyle King

Sagarin wrote:

As to the "spirit" I am referring to, why wouldn't you want to put our very BEST talent on the line, with a chance to represent our country and be competitive? I'm not talking about an egregious, blatant bending of the rules here.

That may be where we differ. I understand that, in a number of countries, the overriding goal is to get the best talent to the Olympics to represent the country. I don't think that should be the overriding goal in selecting the Olympic team for the United States. To me, for the United States, the process of the selection should be more important than the outcome of the selection. More specifically, I believe that a fair and transparent process is more important than getting the best athletes on the team. That's what I believe the United States should stand for, and that's what I believe track and field competition should be about.

still there needs to be formality, procedures, impartiality, and fairness established asap. there needs to be impartial referrees qualified and certified by usatf. people who are not affiliated with any of the parties and who will be forcibly recused if they are.

Avocados Number wrote:

That may be where we differ. I understand that, in a number of countries, the overriding goal is to get the best talent to the Olympics to represent the country. I don't think that should be the overriding goal in selecting the Olympic team for the United States. To me, for the United States, the process of the selection should be more important than the outcome of the selection. More specifically, I believe that a fair and transparent process is more important than getting the best athletes on the team. That's what I believe the United States should stand for, and that's what I believe track and field competition should be about.

I take your point, and I think it is valid. Without having combed the reams of USATF legalese, I'm sure there was some type of clause buried in there allowing USATF to subvert the arbitrariness of the "rules" for extenuating and extraordinary circumstances. I have no idea.

Nonetheless, I appreciate Kyle King's diplomatic and candid retort. And I agree with a lot of what he writes, including the part about the ethical compromise of running the trials as a workout and impacting others' races. Of course, it works both ways. Should you be running the race at all if you are not near peak form and just going through the motions because you qualified? My biggest issue was with the notion that the #25 runner was somehow "passed over" in the 10,000. That just simply wasn't the case.

Moreover, it's clear that this really gets under people's skin. It almost smells like they really have a discernable vendetta to exercise against Goucher. So, let's see... Adam Goucher and Alan Webb as my two examples? So what kind of precedent has that set? Well, it says that if you are already an Olympian, have run one of the fastest 5ks in the US and faster than almost anyone else in the field within the last TWO years (faster in the case of the 10k), and have been recently competitive in elite, international competition, and can reasonably be expected to compete to make the team, that you MAY be granted an entry without the qualifying time within the arbitrary window. And chances are, whether you actually make the team, you will likely push the pace and be competitive in the field. Yep, makes the Dick Beardsley example a really genuine, compelling analogy, eh?

Sagarin wrote:

So, let's see... Adam Goucher and Alan Webb as my two examples? So what kind of precedent has that set? Well, it says that if you are already an Olympian, have run one of the fastest 5ks in the US and faster than almost anyone else in the field within the last TWO years (faster in the case of the 10k), and have been recently competitive in elite, international competition, and can reasonably be expected to compete to make the team, that you MAY be granted an entry without the qualifying time within the arbitrary window.

AND... you've ALREADY qualified WITHIN he arbitrary window for another event...

Looking Objectively At It wrote:

Adam was a factor and threat in the 10k final

WRONG

From the average fans [sic] perspective the 10k final was better with Adam in it rather than Joe and I say that as a fan of Joe.

WRONG

If you don't like the rules then seek for them to be changed

Um, since your reading comprehension fails you, that's exactly what King wants to happen.

Sagarin wrote:

AND... you've ALREADY qualified WITHIN he arbitrary window for another event...

So if you've qualified for the 400 you should be able to run the 800 right?

another coward wrote:

Actually, I never said that I didn't believe the Gouchers of the track community shouldn't have opportunities to file appeals in certain situations. However, I do believe the process needs to be more transparent. Politics, favors, etc. shouldn't be involved in who gets appeals and who doesn't. Does an athlete with similar credentials sponsored by Adidas, without a high-profile coach, get the same consideration under someone like Chaplin? By the way, I'm far from anti-Nike.

Right, any and all appeals should be given a deadline and then all appeals should be weighed against the performance list from the qualification period (which should trump any and all claims of illness or injury) at the same time by a panel that decides on appeals for all events. Remember Scott Douglas's piece on this and how non-name runners with non-name coaches got an endless run-around and then were finally told that it was too late for them to file an appeal when they finally reached the right person? USATF administration takes on the appearance of the title credit footage from the Benny Hill show, completely unprofessional. The reasons the general public doesn't take this sport seriously starts right there with how USATF administration has been allowed to behave. They need to clean house, kick out the 'old guard', and get a tough-minded leader to reform it from the top down.

.truth wrote:

So if you've qualified for the 400 you should be able to run the 800 right?

I suppose if you've already run an 800 almost as fast or faster than anyone else in the field, you could make the argument. Though the chasm between the 400 and 800 is much different than between the 5000/10,000 or 100/200 for that matter, and you well know it. I realize it's a slippery slope. I would stick with my decision and grant Goucher the petition, even after watching the race. Actually, because I watched the race. Goucher was pushing the pace for the chase pack for a lot of it, and had Rupp stopped looking over his shoulder to see if Goucher could make contact and instead dropped a visibly hurting and almost broken Torres, Torres would have been in no man's land and been sucked up by the chase pack. And with Goucher's mile speed and grit... who knows? But that's not the way it went.

As to the politicizing, who else REALLY had a gripe and a legitimate appeal? Seriously, which one of the other guys outside the top 24 had the credentials, the experience on the resume, and could make a legitimate appeal to the USATF?

Sagarin wrote:

As to the politicizing, who else REALLY had a gripe and a legitimate appeal? Seriously, which one of the other guys outside the top 24 had the credentials, the experience on the resume, and could make a legitimate appeal to the USATF?

Everybody who had run faster than Goucher within the window.

Goucher tried to run a qualifying time within the window and failed.

Seriously, if (and I don't think I would want to go down this road) you wanted to allow athletes to qualify in an off event you should have performance standards, just as they allow a 10000m time for the marathon trials. Saying Goucher gets in because he qualified in another event and has all these credentials from the past, blah, blah, makes a mockery of fairness to the other athletes.

Sagarin wrote:

My biggest issue was with the notion that the #25 runner was somehow "passed over" in the 10,000. That just simply wasn't the case.

Then you're biased in favor of Goucher (and your silly belief that he would and did help to make the race even if he wouldn't make the team confirms it, because there would have been no appreciable difference in the race with Goucher's absence) because the rules do state that any additions to the field should come from the descending performance list from the qualifying period from the top down. In other words, even if Goucher's appeal was submitted and approved first, if Driscoll (or anyone else ahead of Goucher on said performance list) appealed at any point between then and the appeals deadline then he should have been included in the field either with Goucher or in place of Goucher. The qualifying window is large enough to allow a realistic view of an athlete's fitness and if Goucher couldn't be bothered to perform to a higher level than he did then he deserves zero special consideration. You have to be under a fairly large sense of denial if you think it really had anything to do with anything other than his affiliations with Nike and Salazar. It was a corrupt decision, another in a string of corrupt decisions under Chaplin's watch, that is only spun as something else by those who take a biased view of Goucher as a sympathetic figure and apply ridiculously subjective criteria. You just don't let a guy into the field based on some goofball 'miracles do happen' thought process.

There needs to be

1. Some kind of criteria for appeals. It doesn't appear there are any. On what basis was Goucher's appeal awarded? If, for instance, injury is a factor in appeals being awarded or denied then that is fine just make it explicit what the factors considered are. The is the fairness needed.

2. Some definite procedure for appeals. Reading the accounts it appears the entire thing is run like a Kangaroo court with nobody even knowing when or where to file and appeal, no assurance that an "appeals committee" even exists or actually considers the application. Some standard operating procedures would be nice.

BOHICA wrote:

You just don't let a guy into the field based on some goofball 'miracles do happen' thought process.

That's the thing. It would've been nowhere close to a "miracle" for Goucher to make the team, and USATF surmised the same. It would have been a "miracles do happen" for anyone of the other ten 10 or 15 athletes "in front" (emphasis on the quotations) of Goucher to make the team. I'm neither denying ethics violations nor levying charges against USATF. But my own criteria for admitting his appeal were hardly completely subjective. Goucher had qualified in the 5, and it's fairly easy to surmise that he would've qualified in the 10 if he had run one. Don't really know why he didn't other than an injury scare.

I have no bias toward Goucher. You can believe that or not... makes no difference. But he's the only athlete who really could have had a legitimate grievance in my opinion. Now, the historical case of Shannon Butler? That's another matter altogether and not a very analogous one. He did run the qualifying time and WAS in the top 24, but he was still shut out. But in the case of Goucher, nobody was stiffed because of his appeal. To think otherwise is plain silly. It was a victimless crime, if you still want to call it a crime. Had he actually made the team, I'm sure that runner #4 would've had a legitimate beef, though it would have ben rather hollow one since he couldn't prove that he was one of the top three.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

There needs to be

1. Some kind of criteria for appeals. It doesn't appear there are any. On what basis was Goucher's appeal awarded? If, for instance, injury is a factor in appeals being awarded or denied then that is fine just make it explicit what the factors considered are. The is the fairness needed.

2. Some definite procedure for appeals. Reading the accounts it appears the entire thing is run like a Kangaroo court with nobody even knowing when or where to file and appeal, no assurance that an "appeals committee" even exists or actually considers the application. Some standard operating procedures would be nice.

I'd agree with this. But the USATF did explicitly state exceptions for former national champions/Olympians, etc. The issue was the expansion of the field beyond the clearly demarcated 24. As I stated earlier, perhaps they had some language allowing for extraordinary circumstances somewhere?

By the way, remind me where Goucher tried to run a 10 and failed WHEN HE WAS IN SHAPE. That Stanford effort I think you are referring to was one of his first post-injury efforts, and barely a year removed from his 13:10 5k, 6th in world cross (top American), and US nationals cross effort where he was right in there with a 27:33 and a 27:35 guy.

I'm starting to think Sagarin has a strong connection to USATF. Maybe he is Doug Logan. Sagarin please state your name coward!

Sagarin wrote:

I'd agree with this. But the USATF did explicitly state exceptions for former national champions/Olympians, etc. The issue was the expansion of the field beyond the clearly demarcated 24. As I stated earlier, perhaps they had some language allowing for extraordinary circumstances somewhere?

By the way, remind me where Goucher tried to run a 10 and failed WHEN HE WAS IN SHAPE. That Stanford effort I think you are referring to was one of his first post-injury efforts, and barely a year removed from his 13:10 5k, 6th in world cross (top American), and US nationals cross effort where he was right in there with a 27:33 and a 27:35 guy.

Are you serious? Now we're supposed to be letting guys in based on where we judge there fitness level to be? You really are an idiot.

Sagarin wrote:

Seriously, which one of the other guys outside the top 24 had the credentials, the experience on the resume, and could make a legitimate appeal to the USATF?

Last time I checked the trials have nothing to do with credentials and experience on resume. If they did Alan Webb would have made the team and Christian Smith would not have.

Nope, what I'm saying is that an admitted appeal for a 13:10/27:59 guy who was a former Olympian and internationally competitive is not unreasonable, certainly not when you compare it to a 28:30 guy who has no international credentials and was never in the top 24 to begin with having HAD the FITNESS and opportunity to make the top 24. Nobody was stiffed here.

You don't agree with me, and that's fine. I don't agree with you either, but that doesn't make you an idiot. But, opinions are indeed like assholes, as they say...

Sagarin wrote:

That's the thing. It would've been nowhere close to a "miracle" for Goucher to make the team, and USATF surmised the same.

His position on the list of qualifiers says otherwise. If he was a realistic threat to make the team then he should've been able to whip out a top 10 (or at the very least top 15) US time easily during the qualifying window in the preceding year-plus. But he wasn't and he didn't. Nobody's calling it a crime other than you. It's a huge inconsistency and a violation of transparent process and when added to numerous other notable inconsistencies and violations of transparent process the whole constitutes an unjust system full of favoritism and corruption. If you're going to have more than 24 in the 10,000m field and you're going to skip down the list beyond the 25 qualifier to add, then they needed to add every qualifier with a mark better than his during the qualifying window and set up semifinal heats for the event. They granted Goucher his appeal before the meet even started, so there was enough notice to alter the schedule for the distance races to allow 10,000m semis if they wanted Goucher added beyond the field size limit for straight final races. How is it that 24 is deemed a "rational field size" (as John Chaplin put it) for the 5000m, an event with both semis and a final, yet 25 is considered a rational field size for the 10,000m which was a straight final event?

Look, I'm not saying that the USATF isn't corrupt, that there hasn't been a dubious pattern of ethical compromises, and that some levers weren't pulled here. That's not what I'm arguing, so you can continue to state your case until you're blue in the face and win the argument with your own self. I'm saying that I would have heard the appeal and made the same decision, because Goucher was not the 28:49 or whatever guy he ran as a rust-buster at Stanford that you imply he was with your argument. For the purposes of the trials, IN MY OPINION, he's a 13:10/27:59 guy who probably had much more in him at peak fitness, had already qualified for the 5000 SIMPLY BECAUSE he ran one when nearing form, had already shown he could compete with ANY American over 12k in cross, and was competitive internationally a mere two years earlier. He probably should have run a 10k, and he didn't. But it's absolutely ridiculous to think that he wouldn't have been in the top 24, THEREBY bumping the #24 qualifier as a mater of fact, if he had run one when fit.

Runners #25+? Sorry, you missed your chance. This was about letting a former Olympian, nationally and internationally competitive cross runner, and 13:10/sub-28:00 guy in. This was NEVER about you. God, I can't ever imagine it would have occurred to me to appeal if I were the #33 guy with a liftime PR of 28:48. I mean, if mere admission were the goal, I'd hope that I had the humility and realism to just step up to the marathon trials, rather than appeal to exercise my spite against the process. At least I couldn't get lapped and be in anyone's way.