Native Son, what opinion can I have about this selection ? Everybody thinks this selection is absurd, but there is a big difference between the selection for men and the selection for women.
In the men's team, Kenya selected its best chances for winning, since Eliud and Stanley are, at the moment, the two best runners in the world, ad probably can remain in this position in Rio too, if Ethiopia doesn't select Kenenisa, who is the ONLY danger for Kenya. So, the selection of Wesley Korir doesn't follow any logic, but is irrelevant, looking at the final goal.
Instead, in the women's team, the selection of Visiline Jepkesho bereaves Kenya of the best hope of victory in Olympics (Florence or Mary).
Florence Kiplagat and Mary Keitany were not at their best in London, because started their training only at half of January after being injured for long time.
Particularly, I can speak about Florence : she was able, in three months only, to run in 2:23, defeating the World Champion (Mare Dibaba), finishing the competition with blisters that were the main reason of her third place instead the second.
Everybody knowing these particulars understands the big room of improvement she can have, before Rio. But this can be considered theory only, so we have to look at FACTS. And facts say that there is no ONE REASON for selecting Visiline, compared with Florence :
1- Florence has a PB better than the PB of Visiline of exactly 5 minutes (2:19:44 vs 2:24:44)
2- Florence has 7 performances better than the PB of Visiline :
2:19:44 (1) Berlin 25 Sep 2011
2:20:24 (2) London 13 Apr 2014
2:20:57 (4) London 22 Apr 2012
2:21:13 (1) Berlin 29 Sep 2013
2:23:33 (1) Chicago 11 Oct 2015
2:23:39 (3) London 24 Apr 2016
2:24:13 (5) London 26 Apr 2015
3- Visiline ran 5 marathons only, all worse than Florence :
2:24:44 (3) Paris 12 Apr 2015
2:25:53 (1) Paris 3 Apr 2016
2:26:47 (1) Lisbon 5 Oct 2014
2:28:40 (1) Milan 6 Apr 2014
2:36:17 (20) Beijing (WCh) 30 Aug 2015
4- Florence has a Seasonal best better than the seasonal best of Visiline
(2:23:39 vs 2:25:53)
5- Florence ALWAYS ran in Major Marathons, Visiline NEVER ran any Major, but only small marathons or (as Paris) of second level, so it's not possible to compare the experience of the two athletes.
6- About their palmarèe in other events, Florence bettered 5 WR on road :
20 km in 1:01:56 Barcelona 16 Feb 2014
HM in 1:05:12 Barcelona 16 Feb 2014
15 km in 46:14 Barcelona 15 Feb 2015 **
20 km in 1:01:54 Barcelona 15 Feb 2015 **
HM in 1:05:09 Barcelona 15 Feb 2015 **
** Current WR
7- Florence is still the Kenyan Record Holder of 10000m on track (30:11:53)
8- As participation for Kenya in top Championships, Florence has the following palmarèe :
World Junior Championships : Silver Medal (5000m) in 2006
World Cross Country : 5th (Short distance) in 2007
World Champion in 2009
World Half Marathon : World Champion in 2010
Visiline : World Marathon Championships 2015 : 20th in 2:36:17
After looking at all these data, really it's not possible to understand how somebody can select Visiline instead of Florence...
The fact is that, in Rio, with this team, practically Kenya competes with two athletes only, leaving out of the team who had more chances of winning.
So, NativeSon, which do you think may opinion can be ?