AP article-Good sign for Kenenisa. Haile Gebrselassie, other athletes protest at Ethiopia federation

Ethio wrote:

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Distance running great Haile Gebrselassiewas part of a group of athletes who protested against the Ethiopian track federation on Tuesday.

The athletes were protesting the federation’s selection process for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Gebrselassie was part of a group of more than 100 athletes who gathered outside the National Stadium in Addis Ababa.

Gebrselassie told The Associated Press that the federation was “marred with incompetency.” He was protesting against, among other things, the exclusion of Kenenisa Bekele from the marathon team for the games.

Bekele, the 5,000 and 10,000 meters world-record holder, was also present. Both he and Gebrselassie addressed the athletes.

A number of other athletes have complained about their exclusion from Ethiopia’s Olympic team, claiming that the selection process is unfair.

Hopefully the Ethiopian Track Federation includes Bekele in the marathon team, they can find a way to get him in there.

I also think that the International Olympic Committee or the IAAF should step in when situations get like this and add a wild card spot or two, especially for former Olympic Champions.

Olympic Wild Card Qualifications

Auto-qualifier: An Olympic Gold Medalist or Olympic Record Holder in any event, is automatically qualified for the Olympics regardless of home national selection rules if he/she has the qualifying A mark for an event of choice. This auto-qualifier does not count toward those athletes a country is allowed to send.

Qualification by Panel of Judges: An Olympic Medalist or Record Holder without the standard A mark can appeal independently to the IAAF for Wild Card selection if the home nation does not select the Olympic team with a home trial.

I am interested to see what you all think of these hypotheticals.

If Geb talks, u know something's not right

king geb wrote:

If Geb talks, u know something's not right

Hopefully the federation were listening!

Ethiopian federation is fast learning from their Kenyan counterparts that corruption and political-correctness is the way to go! I am so glad to see the great Haile lead other great former as well as current athletes to castigate the current federation for its dirty tricks in the selection of the Ethiopian Olympics team. I hope Kenyan great Paul Tergat as well as other Kenyan greats are learning from this instead of trying to be politically correct. A big revolution overdue in the two countries and Ethiopia is on the right track. At least Kenenisa Bekele and Meselech Melkamu deserve to be in the team. The young and inexperienced athletes already picked to the team should be pre-selected for next year's world championship especially that there are five spots to be filled.

As far as International Olympics Committee and or IAAF stepping in to give a wild card, that sounds good as long as each country still retains only three spots per event. If given a wild card in addition to the three spot due for each country, it will be unfair to the other countries. So, yes its a good suggestion as long as the total entrants remain three per country.

king geb wrote:

If Geb talks, u know something's not right

Not only Geb, a lot of Ethiopians are disgusted by it and voice their frustration on social media.

Excellent work Ethio!

I had no idea you would be able to get a protest organized so quickly. Haile the Emperor joining the protest is a very strong statement. Keep the pressure on the federation.

This is a positive Update Bekele.

That must be the stupidest post of the day. Countries would then just leave out their world champions, e.g. Jamaica would leave out Bolt, to get another lower tier athlete in the games.

OG are national not individual wrote:

disgraceful_admin wrote:

Olympic Wild Card Qualifications

Auto-qualifier: An Olympic Gold Medalist or Olympic Record Holder in any event, is automatically qualified for the Olympics regardless of home national selection rules if he/she has the qualifying A mark for an event of choice. This auto-qualifier does not count toward those athletes a country is allowed to send.

Qualification by Panel of Judges: An Olympic Medalist or Record Holder without the standard A mark can appeal independently to the IAAF for Wild Card selection if the home nation does not select the Olympic team with a home trial.

I am interested to see what you all think of these hypotheticals.

That must be the stupidest post of the day. Countries would then just leave out their world champions, e.g. Jamaica would leave out Bolt, to get another lower tier athlete in the games.

Couldn't agree more. Long and middle distance powers like Ethiopia and Kenya would just ask Olympic record holders and champions not to take part in their trials and after they pick top three from the trials, the Olympic champs and record holders appeal and get in through the wild card. This gives the said countries four slots and if they all make it to the finals, the weak one will just be used by their country to pace the stronger ones. This is certainly unfair to other countries and will kill the spirit of fair competition.

What? The revolution already happened in Kenya. Isaiah Kiplagat and his cronies were unceremoniously relieved of their positions.

The whole house(Kenyan Federation) with Isaiah Kiplagat as the head was/is a rotten! To clean it up(revolution), the whole outfit must be wound up and fresh fair and accountable elections held with all athletes and other stake-holders allowed to participate. The current head was an assistant to Isaiah and sat in all the boards where corruption and all sorts of fishy deals were cooked. So we do not expect anything different. Remember how the Olympic marathon team was picked? How did they end up with Cheranganyi MP Wesley Korea as qualified for the team? How did Mary Keitany, and or Florence Kiplagat fail to make the team? The stench is still there!

Clean Sport wrote:

The whole house(Kenyan Federation) with Isaiah Kiplagat as the head was/is a rotten! To clean it up(revolution), the whole outfit must be wound up and fresh fair and accountable elections held with all athletes and other stake-holders allowed to participate. The current head was an assistant to Isaiah and sat in all the boards where corruption and all sorts of fishy deals were cooked. So we do not expect anything different.

+1

Reminiscent of the "changes" at the IAAF last year. Next to impossible to clean up while keeping the old guys' network.

Mr. "Ethio," didn't you watch the latest Bekele and Melkamu's interviews on EBC, posted on YouTube? I've already told you,....said this under your other post about Bekele.

I was actually going to make a post similar to this post of yours after hearing about the protests, but was heartbroken to find out that both Bekele and Melkamu do NOT want to go to Rio anymore even if they are allowed/selected. They said this in the interview...and their reason is that the EAF has touched their "morales" or something along this lines. They don't have the interest and motivation anymore. Bekele added, "I was supposed be on session 2 of my preparation for Rio by now, so it's too late."

You know what Bekele also said? He said, "The reason I'd been complaining/arguing to get selected was not really for my own goods, it's more of for my country. It has been a very loong time since Ethiopia has won an Olympic or World Champs gold in the marathon, and I was going to achieve that!"

And when Bekele says that, he means it,...all the other runners are going for 2nd or 3rd knowing Kipchoge is there, but Bekele was going for the win! And he was going to do it! Remember how he took down Farah in his half marathon debut! He knows how to win!

Soooo sad he's given up on the Olympics now!!! I'm sooooo mad/angry/pissed at the EAF now!

The protest now is so that such problems won't happen in the future. Both Bekele and Melkamu have given up on the Olympics and just "wish well" for the selected ones.

Feeling high right now! wrote:

OG are national not individual wrote:

That must be the stupidest post of the day. Countries would then just leave out their world champions, e.g. Jamaica would leave out Bolt, to get another lower tier athlete in the games.

Couldn't agree more. Long and middle distance powers like Ethiopia and Kenya would just ask Olympic record holders and champions not to take part in their trials and after they pick top three from the trials, the Olympic champs and record holders appeal and get in through the wild card. This gives the said countries four slots and if they all make it to the finals, the weak one will just be used by their country to pace the stronger ones. This is certainly unfair to other countries and will kill the spirit of fair competition.

Um. That's the point. WR holders and champions wouldn't have to participate in whatever selection process a country uses, and some countries would have more than three athletes competing. This is already the way it works at Worlds, where defending champs are automatically qualified.

Why is that unfair or against the spirit of fair competition? It's a perfectly rational qualifying process. You might just as easily say that qualifying standards themselves are unfair because most countries don't have three qualifiers in each event.

As for the possibility of a "weaker" athlete making it to the finals and pacing the three stronger athletes, that seems a ridiculous concern. First, the likelihood of that happening doesn't change appreciably with four athletes instead of three. More importantly, this had actually happened before, and it didn't ruin the race. In the 10,000 in Sydney, where Tergat was paced for almost the entire race by his countryman John Korir, who finished out of the medals. That race is widely regarded as one of the greatest track races of all time.

That said, I think the proposal is too broad. It certainly shouldn't apply between disciplines, and I also think it gives too much credit to stale accomplishment, even if an athlete does have the standard. Something more up to date would be defending World Champion and the world leading time from the previous year.

Mr. "Ethio," didn't you watch the latest Bekele and Melkamu's interviews on EBS, posted on YouTube? I've already told you,....said this under your other post about Bekele.

I was actually going to make a post similar to this post of yours after hearing about the protests, but was heartbroken to find out that both Bekele and Melkamu do NOT want to go to Rio anymore even if they are allowed/selected. They said this in the interview...and their reason is that the EAF has touched their "morales" or something along those lines. They don't have the interest and motivation anymore. Bekele added, "I was supposed to be on session 2 of my preparation for Rio by now, so it's too late now."

You know what Bekele also said? He said, "The reason I'd been complaining/arguing to get selected was not really for my own goods, it's more of for my country. It has been a very loong time since Ethiopia has won an Olympic or World Champs gold in the marathon, and I was going to achieve that!"

And when Bekele says that, he means it,...all the other runners are going for 2nd or 3rd knowing Kipchoge is there, but Bekele was going for the win! And he was going to do it! Remember how he took down Farah in his half marathon debut! He knows how to win!

Soooo sad he's given up on the Olympics now!!! I'm sooooo mad/angry/pissed at the EAF now!

The protest now is so that such problems won't happen in the future. Both Bekele and Melkamu have given up on the Olympics and just "wish well" for the selected ones.

Here's the interview (Amharic):

https://youtu.be/pqCvmJTVF4A

Mr. "Ethio," didn't you watch the latest Bekele and Melkamu's interviews on EBS, posted on YouTube? I've already told you,....said this under your other post about Bekele.

I was actually going to make a post similar to this post of yours after hearing about the protests, but was heartbroken to find out that both Bekele and Melkamu do NOT want to go to Rio anymore even if they are allowed/selected. They said this in the interview...and their reason is that the EAF has touched their "morales" or something along those lines. They don't have the interest and motivation anymore. Bekele added, "I was supposed to be on session 2 of my preparation for Rio by now, so it's too late now."

You know what Bekele also said? He said, "The reason I'd been complaining/arguing to get selected was not really for my own goods, it's more of for my country. It has been a very loong time since Ethiopia has won an Olympic or World Champs gold in the marathon, and I was going to achieve that!"

And when Bekele says that, he means it,...all the other runners are going for 2nd or 3rd knowing Kipchoge is there, but Bekele was going for the win! And he was going to do it! Remember how he took down Farah in his half marathon debut! He knows how to win!

Soooo sad he's given up on the Olympics now!!! I'm sooooo mad/angry/pissed at the EAF now!

The protest now is so that such problems won't happen in the future. Both Bekele and Melkamu have given up on the Olympics and just "wish well" for the selected ones.

Here's the interview (Amharic):

https://youtu.be/pqCvmJTVF4A

Sorry, the repeating posts are due to my internet connection problems.

That's dissapointing....But never know if that's just talk or if they somehow named him if he would change his mind

I could be wrong, but I feel like I've heard Geb and Bekele don't really like each other so I was surprised to see Geb going to bat for him. Things must be that bad.