Ethiopian marathon team announced: Picks are as debatable as Kenya's

grox wrote:If these are the same points as the ones described here:

http://arrs.net/CompRank.htm

, this is pretty complicated and results in a pretty wrong ranking in my opinion.

If I understand the system, breaking a world record could get an athlete no points at all if he did not face serious competition. A marathoner losing to a half-marathoner specialist at a half marathon would make him lose points. Getting third at London after more than a year of inactivity gets you next to nothing because your score was reset to zero. Eliud Kipchoge has 2880 points, Stanley Biwott has 2975.

It ranks Galen Rupp, Ryan Hill, and Ben True ahead of Eliud Kipchoge. An Eric Jenkins is right after Kipchoge. Great news for the US!!!!

lover of the classics wrote:

Does this mean Bekele is focusing on the 10000?

Or does this mean we don't see Bekele in anything at Olympics?

IDK, but I'd love to see Bekele vs. Farah.

I'm disappointed if he doesn't feature at the marathon.

I don't think he's a factor at 10000 now, he can't come back at that distance now imo

He is running the Great Manchester run 10km this weekend so obviously still interested in the distance. Whether he can do it on the track is another story

grox wrote:

Thanks.

If these are the same points as the ones described here:

http://arrs.net/CompRank.htm

, this is pretty complicated and results in a pretty wrong ranking in my opinion.

If I understand the system, breaking a world record could get an athlete no points at all if he did not face serious competition. A marathoner losing to a half-marathoner specialist at a half marathon would make him lose points. Getting third at London after more than a year of inactivity gets you next to nothing because your score was reset to zero. Eliud Kipchoge has 2880 points, Stanley Biwott has 2975.

No problem. Yes, those are the points the use to do the race rankings. As far as I understand it:

-I don't think a WR would be worth zero, but yes, their system does value racing over time trialling in ranking how competitive someone is in a race.

-Nobody races one distance exclusively, so yes, losing at one distance would hurt your overall standings.

-The score isn't reset to zero if you're inactive, it just gets lower. They're taken out of the rankings listing after a year without a race, otherwise you'd have guys who retired years ago still in there. They still keep their point score, though.

-Kipchoge has only raced twice in the last year, both wins, while Biwott has raced 7 times, 3 of them wins and 3 of them 2nd-places.

This is bullshit.

So, what is Rupp's chance at a medal?

I wonder if there is a little "palm greasing" going on amongst the selectors of for the East African countries? Consistently bizarre picks.

survey says wrote:

bye bye Bekele wrote:

Men:

Tesfaye Abera

Lemi Berhanu

Feyisa Lelisa

Bekele, Desisa, and Tsegay are alternates.

I would have picked the 3 men's alternates for the team.

Abera: won Dubai this year, fastest ETH so far in 2016

Berhanu: won Dubai last year and fastest ETH of 2015, 2nd in Dubai this year, won Boston this year

Lelisa: Won Tokyo this year

Bekele: 3rd in London this year, DNF in Dubai last year behind Berhanu

Desisa: 2nd in Boston this year behind Berhanu, 3rd in NYC last year

Tsegay: 3rd in Boston this year behind Berhanu and Desisa, 5th in NYC last year behind Desisa

Two 2016 World Marathon Major winners and the Dubai winner, one of whom beat all three alternates, and two of whom are the fastest Ethiopians of 2015 and 2016. Hard to argue with this team selection.

Agree, what is there to debate?

Now that we know who'll be competing in Rio for Marathon (at least the medal contenders), I'll predict the top 3:

Men's Marathon:

1. Kipchoge

2. Gebresilasie

3. Tesfaye Abera

It's a bummer that Bekele is not selected!! The selectors are making the same mistake as they did in 2013, which non of the selected runners (over Bekele) in the 10k did anything good. It was only Ibrahim Jeilan who qualified rightly with his wild card (from 2011) that got a medal for ETH. The ETH Athletics Fed would not have picked Jeilan either. It was good to see Bekele take down Farah, days after the WC in his Half Marathon debut!!

I believe Bekele can make the 10k team though, and I think he actually has a better chance than the other medal contenders if Kamworor pushes the pace. Bekele can keep up!!

Just making sure that the idiot that started another thread withTHE SAME topic is recognized as the dumbest poster on the board.

With the women, Tufa just beat Dibaba and Mergia in London. It seems like you make room for Tufa on the team instead of making her an alternate to people she just beat.

And what about Baysa after an impressive performance in Boston? She just beat Tsegaye, but Tsegaye is the alternate.

Ethiopia has blown it as we describe here:

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2016/05/2016-ethiopian-olympic-marathon-team-announced-ethiopians-leave-off-worlds-fastest-woman-arguably-worlds-greatest-distance-runner-ever/

It's a good day for Rupp as some of those picks make no sense.

Men:

Tesfaye Abera

Lemi Berhanu

Feyisa Lelisa

Bekele, Desisa, and Tsegay are alternates.

Women:

Mare Dibaba

Aberu Kebede

Aselefech Mergia

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2016/05/2016-ethiopian-olympic-marathon-team-announced-ethiopians-leave-off-worlds-fastest-woman-arguably-worlds-greatest-distance-runner-ever/

I would have picked the 3 men's alternates for the team.

Mare Dibaba

Aberu Kebede

Aselefech Mergia

Congrats USA

For the men they got it right based on facts regarding recent form and times. You can have your own opinions but not your own facts.

Dubai is the worst judge of a marathoner.

Every 4 years, the countries that pick their teams by committee instead of trials make me glad the US has a trials system.

An Olympic medal doesn't go to the person a committee picks as being the best marathoner - it goes to the person who shows up and performs on the day, and a trials system works the same way. Trials aren't perfect, but they're at least fair and transparent and I expect they pick the athletes mostly likely to do the best at the Olympics at least as often as a committee would.

There's a very simple reason the African nations don't have a trial, insufficient prize money, if any. Also, if trials "do the best...at least as often as a committee would" what's the problem.

bye bye Bekele wrote:

Men:

Tesfaye Abera

Lemi Berhanu

Feyisa Lelisa

Bekele, Desisa, and Tsegay are alternates.

Women:

Mare Dibaba

Aberu Kebede

Aselefech Mergia

http://www.letsrun.com/news/2016/05/2016-ethiopian-olympic-marathon-team-announced-ethiopians-leave-off-worlds-fastest-woman-arguably-worlds-greatest-distance-runner-ever/

I would have picked the 3 men's alternates for the team.

Wow!

I had

1. Berhanu

2. Desisa

3. Bekele

women;

1. Tirfi Tsegaye

2. Tigist Tufa

3. Mare Dibaba

I think Ethiopia blew it with regard to not picking Bekele.

Ethiopian Federation picks:

Tesfaye Abera

Lemi Berhanu

Feyisa Lelisa

Bekele, Desisa, and Tsegay are alternates.

Women:

Mare Dibaba

Aberu Kebede

Aselefe Mergia

I think Ethiopia's selection is worse than kenya's on both levels.

Stephen Kiprotich must be smiling.