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

This is seriously fucking bullshit. The 2nd time now that Ethiopia has screwed me out of getting to see KB mix it up in a World final. Remember in 2012 when they picked their team based on the Dubai results. NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM FINISHED.

My hunch:

Leaving Bekele off the team is due to he retest of the samples...

I think it has to do with his perennial injuries.

His London run was quite impressive though.

I think their logic is that he got handily beaten by Kipchoge and Biwott in London, finishing over three minutes behind. The Ethios want someone who can shadow the leader all the way and sprint the last few metres if need be.

Looks like a good selection to me (I'm only assessing the men's section). They picked WINNERS. Three guys who all won their recent races. Why would they select a guy who finished in 3rd place (Bekele)?? Ethiopia wants the best shot at a GOLD medal, and the best odds to do that is to pick from a list of winners. A guy who won his race certainly has a better shot at gold than a guy who got 3rd place recently. Stats don't lie, picking proven winners is the more logical choice. Picking by heart instead of mind only leads to disappointments.

El Keniano wrote:

I think their logic is that he got handily beaten by Kipchoge and Biwott in London, finishing over three minutes behind. The Ethios want someone who can shadow the leader all the way and sprint the last few metres if need be.

And who would be a better kicker in a non-time trial than Kenenisa?

Bias much?

Insidesourceioc100mill$ wrote:

Looks like a good selection to me (I'm only assessing the men's section). They picked WINNERS. Three guys who all won their recent races. Why would they select a guy who finished in 3rd place (Bekele)?? Ethiopia wants the best shot at a GOLD medal, and the best odds to do that is to pick from a list of winners. A guy who won his race certainly has a better shot at gold than a guy who got 3rd place recently. Stats don't lie, picking proven winners is the more logical choice. Picking by heart instead of mind only leads to disappointments.

Winners? Wining by itself doesn't count. It all depends on how competitive the races are, and London this year had the most competitive fields by far: Kipchoge, Kipsang, Kimmeto, etc. How well could the selected ones have finished in London this year? I don't think any of them could have finished higher than Bekele.

Again, why would they want to send a guy who will likely at best get bronze (based on losing to 2 Kenyans earlier), or a guy who has a shot to get them a gold medal, based on his recent undefeated record? Time is irrelevant. Bekele should have raced Tokyo or Dubai or Boston but all we learned from his run is that he's over 3 minutes behind the top 2 Kenyans.

george oscar bluth wrote:

This is seriously fucking bullshit. The 2nd time now that Ethiopia has screwed me out of getting to see KB mix it up in a World final. Remember in 2012 when they picked their team based on the Dubai results. NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM FINISHED.

Not picking BEKELE is a complete nonsense:

1) Finishing 3rd in London behind undoubtedly the marathoners n°1 and 2 in the world, and beyond KIPSANG and WC GEBRE, arguably makes him the marathoner n°3 in the world (and Ethiopian 1rst)

2) Considering that he could achieve this performance after such a minimal and erratic training makes him the only Ethiopian that could win gold against KIPCHOGE and BIWOTT in four months time (if could stay healthy and prepare well all along)

3) Not picking him because of his past repeated injury issues would have made no sense at all, because there is a reserve team precisely for such case...

DESISA is a minor case i.m.o (because he has anyway close to 0 chance to win gold against KIPCHOGE and BIWOTT, but significant chances to get silver or bronze though), but it is also not understandable that he has not been selected in the A team.

So they screwed up so badly that the only logical explanation I see is that SALAZAR and Patrick SANG composed the "Ethiopian" selection committee...

Kenya have messed up their selection too. Both men's and women's teams could be better.

I dont think any Ethiopain could have beaten either Kiochoge or Biwott in london.

NO ONE!

Bekele lost by 3 minutes.

That just tells you the kind of form and shape the two guys are iit doesnt say much about the Ethiipians who werent in the race.

Bekele is in very good shape.

In my opinion, he should have been on the team.

Just my thoughts.

Trial by committee. wrote:

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.

Just make the trials part of a spring marathon. I'm sure you could get Tokyo, London, or someone else to kick in enough appearance fee and prize money to make it worth Ethiopia or Kenya's time to make their trials part of a bigger marathon. Ethiopia and Kenya appear to be using these marathons as an important factor in selection anyway, so they might as well equalize the competition between all of the candidates by getting them in the same race.

The problem with selection by committee is that it's not any better at picking winners than a trials system and it is always of questionable fairness. You get strange picks that may be based on arbitrary criteria, an athlete's coach or other connections, political influence, and other improper or irrelevant reasons.

Assuming that neither system is superior at picking Olympic winners, then the system that is freer from improper or irrelevant bias is better.

I think they go by what happened in recent olympics. They want people who can hang on to the fast pace and possible win. Merga almost did it in a blazing performance in 2008. The group totally failed in 2012 when Kipsang tried to be Wanjiru but they still want the shot at gold which means taking a risk.

My guess is that they feel KB can't go with Kipchoge and Biwott but they hope one of the younger guys can hold on.

Maybe KB does the 10000 if he can get in specific shape. I bet it would be a quick pace. I doubt he has the same confidence in his track kick after the last 5 years.

Point me to a marathon that is prepared to put up $100,000, or lets be conservative and say $50,000 appearance fee for each of the top ten Ethios and then prize money the same as they're paying now on top of that, same with a marathon for the Kenyans.

And the really top guys will want more than 50k appearance so the big city marathons missing out on the Ethiopian and Kenyan trials runners will then try and coax a couple of them for their marathon by offering bigger incentives, then you wouldn't have full strength trials and you'd have the same argument as now.

Funny they are having to leave out sub 2.06 guys when the Q standard is 2.19. Sad. I would make a Q standard of 2.09 or fastest 50 athletes overall with times set from Dubai on. This year already we have 14 Ethiopians and 32 Kenyans under 2.09. Already. Why should they have to stay at home when some 2.19 guy some unknown island gets go .