This is an extension of recent Toni Reavis blog post. Talk about bragging rights for the next four years. In other sports, there are valid reasons for limiting the size of teams/fields. But the marathon? Let the 250 or so fastest runners duke it out.
I absolutely agree for the marathon - I can't see a reason other than tradition to limit the marathon field. In track you need a way to limit fields, but not the marathon or racewalk.
From a running geek perspective it might be interesting to see one race with all of the top talent. One wonders whether it would really happen though, since the only thing limiting this from happening at some other major marathon is limitations on appearance fees and the Olympic marathon isn't going to change that. That is, go very far into the depth chart for any powerhouse country, and there going to find better opportunities to race elsewhere.
Further allowing more than 3 participants per country opens the door for the strong countries to use team tactics, greatly changing the dynamics of the race. An upset becomes more improbable than it already is.
Mostly, from a non-running geek perspective, i.e. virtually all of the target audience, no one really needs to see yet another running race lead by an army of Kenyans.
That's true. I had not though of that. Only running geek would be interested in all out race with no nbc story lines.
I tend to agree that the field could grow quite a bit and not lose quality.
The idea of the Olympics is to have COUNTRIES compete against each other, not individual athletes. The athletes win the medals for their country, not for themselves.
What countries are competing against each other when there are 200 Kenyans in a race. Boring.
agree. the olympics should be the race every 4 years where everyone finally meets to determine the head to head pecking order. in 2008. ritz was 9th and hall was 10th. they were not the 9th and 10th best runners in the 2008 world. limiting kenya/ethopia in particular leads to races like london actually being the most competitive race in the world
I think all of the best should be at the Olympics.
Easily in the marathon but they should let more top track runners go, too.
With the marathon, you could have all A quailifiers go plus at least three from each country with a B standard.
getting 10th in the Olympics should mean 10th in the world, but it doesn't right now.
I'd go even further: Eliminate the whole concept of national teams, set qualifying standards, and let the best compete. I've always found the nationalism to be the worst aspect of the Olympics.
Nutella1 wrote:
The idea of the Olympics is to have COUNTRIES compete against each other, not individual athletes. The athletes win the medals for their country, not for themselves.
What countries are competing against each other when there are 200 Kenyans in a race. Boring.
what does citius altius fortius have to do with countries?
You could argue the middle ground and support increasing the number from 3 to 5, A standard only qualifiers or 1 B, which would probably increase the field by about 40% without letting a small army of Kenyans pace a greater army of Kenyans to victory.
OP,
We already have that scenario today. London, Berlin, Chicago, Rotterdam, Frankfort, etc. It's Kenya sweeping the first 5-10 places every time.
There are a number of other events where one or two countries would have numerous athletes - e.g., China in ping-pong. I think part of it is that some aspect of it is countries competing against one another.
Bad idea wrote:
OP,
We already have that scenario today. London, Berlin, Chicago, Rotterdam, Frankfort, etc. It's Kenya sweeping the first 5-10 places every time.
London is great, but it's not everyone there, one day, one giant pack slugging it out.
A 1st class Olympic marathon would be completely epic. can you imagine having a pack of 10 with a mile to go? Reavis would explode, but if that is the price to pay...
They would have to build a bigger Olympic village.
Wisco Fan wrote:
This is an extension of recent Toni Reavis blog post. Talk about bragging rights for the next four years. In other sports, there are valid reasons for limiting the size of teams/fields. But the marathon? Let the 250 or so fastest runners duke it out.
Okay so you're assuming that all 250 would WANT to run a race with no pay. This is extremely unlikely considering that they would have to give up a paying race to run the Olympics since marathoners can only do 2 maybe 3 a year. They would be taking a major pay cut and since Kenyans mostly run for money most would pass on the Olympics.
I'm not sure I agree. You certainly be able to leverage a solid performance into future appearence fees.
Les wrote:
Okay so you're assuming that all 250 would WANT to run a race with no pay. This is extremely unlikely considering that they would have to give up a paying race to run the Olympics since marathoners can only do 2 maybe 3 a year. They would be taking a major pay cut and since Kenyans mostly run for money most would pass on the Olympics.
Old Miler wrote:
I'd go even further: Eliminate the whole concept of national teams, set qualifying standards, and let the best compete. I've always found the nationalism to be the worst aspect of the Olympics.
I agree with this.
What about an across-the-board A+ standard for all events? In 1972 Lee Evans didn't get to run in Munich because he was 4th in the OT. (He was on the relay but it ran out of runners when Wayne Collett and Vince Matthews were thrown out and John Smith pulled a hamstring, leaving the relay with only 3 guys. Matthews, btw, wrote a fine book, "My Race Be Won", which is out-of-print.)
I don't know the standard for the various distances and field events, but something equivalent to, say, 2:06:00 for the men's marathon. They wouldn't exhaust a country's spots. You could have 3 "A"s OR 2 "A"s and as many "A+"s as you have.
Athletics Kenya and the Ethiopian federation would resist losing their control over athletes (USATF's control is limited by the top-3 rule or I wouldn't trust it to do anything to lessen such grips on athletes as it has). In the end, though, the prospect of a marathon-field laden with Kenyans and Ethiopians would be worth it.
Wisco Fan wrote:
I'm not sure I agree. You certainly be able to leverage a solid performance into future appearence fees.
I don't know what the cutoff would be for top 250. For top 100 it was under 2:09 last year. I'd expect anyone with those credentials could find a race with a guarenteed appearance fee with a good chance of collecting prize money. It seems naive to think large numbers of these guys would forego any paycheck for a 3 in 100 (or 250) chance to "leverage a solid performance into future appearance fees" when they're already worthy of appearance fees.
While, as a running geek, I agree that the race you envision would be cool, I don't see it happening without strong financial incentives that aren't going to happen anywhere, much less under the Olympic format.