IAAF Hall of Fame standards = ridiculous

Uh. Why such strict standards? That basically means they can look at the stat books and just name outright the qualified athletes. There's no need to have a panel.

Good to see they're not letting any hobby joggers in.

Requiring a WR is questionable, especially considering that so many women's WR may be unattainable by anyone who isn't doping.

Given the questions around Jackie Joyner Kersee and Wang Junxia, I'm a bit surprised they got in in the inaugural class.

Doping issues aside, the WR requirement also heavily weights it toward early eras before people really understood the basics of training or technique and WRs were easier to set.

Aw hell naw you jus didn'

spyridon louis won the 1896 olympic marathon in 2.58, a pretty pathetic hobby jogger performance by anyones standard. And he's famous for it...

[/sarcasm]

Agree that the WR requirement is complete garbage. What if Bolt puts the 100 record in a place that won't be seen for 20 or 30 years. Nobody in several generations of sprinters can be an IAAF hall of famer. Two GOLD medals is a plenty high barrier to admission.

Yeah, the WR thing keeps quite a few people out.

Looking at the list Wang is in for geographical distribution purposes. She's the only Asian, just as Brazil's Silva is the only South American.

rp wrote:

Membership of the Hall of Fame

To give the Hall of Fame the required stature the IAAF has established very strict requirements for an athlete to even qualify to be considered for membership:

1) Athletes must have won at least two Olympic or World Championships gold medals AND at set least one World record,

2) Athletes must have been retired for at least 10 years at the time of election to the IAAF Hall of Fame

To administer the process of which athletes will be honoured with induction as Members an IAAF Hall of Fame Selection Panel has been created, which is composed of renowned athletics experts who are long-standing members of the Association of Track and Field Statisticians (ATFS).

http://www.iaaf.org/Mini/HOF/News/NewsDetail.aspx?id=63839

Discuss...

Well...this requirement has made it virtually impossible for any female 10000m, 1500m, or 3000m specialists...

The odds of Wang Junxia or Qu Yunxia's records in those events EVER being broken is virtually zero...

No Paul Tergat or Ron Clarke? That makes the requirements bogus right there.

A spreadsheet of the eligible athletes would be interesting. I bet it's more sprinters than anything else because the 2 medal requirement favors athletes who can do 2, 3, or 4 events in a single Olympics and 100/200/4x100 (plus long jump, for a few) is the most practical multiple event to do, especially with the modern events. Paavo Nurmi's 5 golds at one Olympics wouldn't be doable for a distance runner with the current events.

Having to medal in successive Olympics seems a lot tougher, although in the dec (basically impossible to double with) Bob Mathias and Daley Thompson did it.

I wonder if Viren will be in the next set of picks

Actually, the two guys talked about as the next possible IAAF Presidents, Coe and Bubka, both meet the criteria.

Then again, so does Marita Koch. I wonder if they'll have the gall to pick some of the old East Germans.

Eligible post-WWII distance runners, 800 & up (no marathon)

Zatopek

Coe

El G

Aouita

Kuts

Keino

Viren

Snell

Morceli

Wilson Kipketer

Shaheen

Moses Kiptanui

Geb (after retirement)

Bekele (after retirement)

Notable ineligibles

Ron Clarke: no gold

Ovett: 1 gold

Herb Elliot: 1 gold

Yifter: no WRs

Walker: 1 gold

Mal Whitfield: no WRs

Lagat: no WRs

Komen: 1 gold

Tergat: no gold

I don't have time at the moment to go through all the eligible sprinters and hurdlers but here are the WC era qualifiers, assuming relays counts:

Lewis

MJ

Bolt

Moses

Greene

Colin Jackson

Liu

Kingdom

Young

Reynolds

Smith

Powell

Bailey

Burrell

Marsh

Pretty silly criteria. As others have said, sprinters are favored because of the ease of doubling and the presence of relays. Post-1983 athletes are advantaged by the Worlds gold criterion, though post-90s runners are disadvantaged by the paucity of WRs in standard events. Asbel Kiprop could repeat in London, win a pair more WC titles, run 3:26.01 and be ineligible, while a far more flawed career (Shaheen's, for example) is eligible to be recognized.

Zatopek, Lewis, and Moses have already been picked

Occurred to me as well.

No Jim Ryun, Frank Shorter, Roger Bannister, Bill Rodgers, Joanie Benoit, Mary Slaney....

My critique wrote:

Requiring a WR is questionable, especially considering that so many women's WR may be unattainable by anyone who isn't doping.

Given the questions around Jackie Joyner Kersee and Wang Junxia, I'm a bit surprised they got in in the inaugural class.

Doping issues aside, the WR requirement also heavily weights it toward early eras before people really understood the basics of training or technique and WRs were easier to set.

My critique to you dumb@ss:

Athletes did NOT understand basics of training and technique earlier. We run faster than ever and has more advantages than ever. The problem is how much harder it gets to break WR everytime they get pushed a little further down. How athletes train today has nothing to do with the problem of demanding a WR.

This hall of fame is ridiculous and nobody will ever care.

Jeez guys they'll probably relax the standards eventually.

[quote]NUD wrote:

Eligible post-WWII distance runners, 800 & up (no marathon)

Zatopek

Coe

El G

Aouita

Kuts

Keino

Viren

Snell

Morceli

Wilson Kipketer

Shaheen

Moses Kiptanui

Geb (after retirement)

Bekele (after retirement)

Notable ineligibles

Ron Clarke: no gold

Ovett: 1 gold

Herb Elliot: 1 gold

Yifter: no WRs

Walker: 1 gold

Mal Whitfield: no WRs

Lagat: no WRs

Komen: 1 gold

Tergat: no gold

quote]

If this is going to be for the all-time greats, then I think the criteria is very reasonable on the whole. You can't include any athlete that has won a single Olympic or World gold, otherwise there would be hundreds eligible, and it would diminish the whole thing.

Having said that, it's not really fair for those athletes reaching a peak prior to 1983, as they only had one opportunity every 4 years. From 83-91, athletes had 2 chances to win global golds every 4 year cycle, and since 91 athletes have 3 chances every 4 years! This is hardly fair.

I personally think that an Olympic title is equivalent to 2 World titles, and that perhaps anyone who wins 2 lesser medals at the Olympics (silver or bronze) should have that count as an equivalent to 1 World gold.

I also think that if any athlete breaks more than 2 world records, or breaks a world record in more than 1 event, that should also be taken into consideration.

To get around the dubious legitimacy of some records (e.g in women's distance events), then perhaps they could bring in another criteria which is based on a set number of world ranking points over a career, or the number of times an athlete headed the top list for the year.

Ovett should definitely be eligible, and in a time before world championships, he won 2 World Cup golds, when they were the pinnacle of an athlete's season and considered a pre-cursor to the inaugural World Champs in 1983. For me, those 2 World Cup golds are equivalent to World golds, so maybe anyone who won a World Cup gold in the first 3 editions of the competition (77, 79 & 81) could also have their golds considered.

Hope that makes sense.

So, based on what I've said, Ovett would get in due to having 3 global golds (1 Olympic, 2 World Cups) and 5 world records over 3 different distances.

Herb Elliott would also get in because although he only had 1 Olympic gold, he broke 2 world records in 2 events (1500 & Mile), thus compensating for the other gold medal.