Pablo, is the "2 year ranking" just for events that athletes don't often compete in (long distances, combined events & race walks) or is it for all events?
Pablo, is the "2 year ranking" just for events that athletes don't often compete in (long distances, combined events & race walks) or is it for all events?
It will be a 2-year window for all events. With points being deducted for results within 1 and 2 years old though.
Go, Laura! wrote:
noFway! wrote:
What? If the new system is approved for Tokyo 2020 this means there won't be any olympic trials anymore?? Top 3 will be selected straightaway?? It would be ridiculous..
No, you'll still have your Olympic Trials. But, instead of asking "have the top 3 each got the qualifying standard mark?" the question will be "are the top 3 each in the top 32/48 (whatever the quota is for the event) on the World Rankings once you've taken into account the 3-per-country rule?"
That is not true . The proposed qualification system for Doha still provided for qualification by entry standard.
The apparent way that the ranking system was going to be given a significant role for Doha was to make the entry standards more difficult to obtain than they had been in the past, which would relegate more athletes to entry by ranking. Flotrack said it had a source that the idea being floated about was to set the auto standards at the top ten performer for this past season.
That would be a significant change but it would still mean most American sprinters could qualify by entry standard, not by ranking.
The only reason most people, fans and athletes, will give a darn about the rankings is their effect on qualifying for Worlds/Olympics and the practical significance of rankings in that regard won't be known until IAAF sets auto entry standards under a new regime.
If looks like the best bet now is that won't happen until 2021.
the fine print wrote:
The only reason most people, fans and athletes, will give a darn about the rankings is their effect on qualifying for Worlds/Olympics and the practical significance of rankings in that regard won't be known until IAAF sets auto entry standards under a new regime.
No that's not true at all. It dictates who will be able to gain entry into top meets.
If someone wants a meet to hold a platinum event (I'm not sure why meet organizers care but let's say they do), they have to invite a platinum athlete. But the current fitness of the platinum athlete doesn't matter. If the athlete did well two years ago then they'll keep getting invites until their status is downgraded, and they'll be highly sought because there are only ten of them in the world. It introduces an artificial scarcity.
Many people have posted about the difficulty of getting a young new athlete into top meets. I don't know if this system will help or hurt. Say you require 1 platinum, 3 gold, 5 silver athletes. You're not going to pick 3 random gold athletes, you're going to pick the top names within that pool, and there will probably be quite a few. Farah might count as a silver athlete in the 10K since his last track 10K was over a year ago. So it's really hard for me to evaluate how this will play out.
I don't understand if requiring a certain number of silver athletes means "silver or higher" or just silver. Like if a meet requires at least 1 platinum, 3 gold, 5 silver athletes, will they satisfy this requirement with 5 platinum, 5 gold, and 0 silver athletes?
Actually I'm not sure what is the problem that this system is trying to solve:
-Is it the quality of meets? I think they already do their best to attract top talent with the money they have, but I guess I don't know too much about that.
-Is it the ease of getting new athletes into meets? Just because an athlete is silver doesn't mean they're young. I don't see how the two-year window will help young athletes at all.
-Is it the ease of following for spectators? I don't know why you think this two-year sliding scale point system that varies with all sorts of details will be easy to follow.
-Is it the transparency of the invitational system? Maybe it helps, but there's still the issue of which athletes to pick from the various pools.
It also introduces new problems:
-Potential for sandbagging -- if several gold athletes are invited but only one platinum, maybe it would be beneficial to be the top-ranked gold instead of the bottom-ranked platinum?
-Incentive to invite over-the-hill or out-of-shape athletes to satisfy the platinum/gold/etc requirements.
+1
I suppose one of the problems it solves is that it creates a stronger brand for the top athletes. It helps guarantee that top athletes can get invited to meets because they're gold/silver/whatever, even if they don't have the recent results to back it up. I don't think this is really a good thing for track and field, but I admit there were at least a couple names on each of the lists that I don't know even though I spend way too much time on this website.
Pablo Ortiz Iaaf wrote:
It will be a 2-year window for all events. With points being deducted for results within 1 and 2 years old though.
Thanks.
Hmm ... not sure what I think of that change. My initial thought is that it could lead to athletes who are not in form in the current year still qualifying for the championship (because their previous year was strong). I don't think that's what's intended by the new system??
I did see the logic of the original proposal of having an 18-month window for the longer distance events, race walks and combined events because they are competed less frequently (and that matches up with what currently happens - these events have longer qualifying periods than the others). But to me, a 12-month window for all the other events would have been fine as it was.
You're right to bring up the qualification standard route of entry but I believe you've misunderstood when it will apply.
The original premise when this system was announced last year was as follows:
- Athletes will qualify for major championships by virtue of their world ranking under the new world rankings system (as well as satisfying any other conditions set by their national federation, e.g., finishing Top 3 at the Trials).
- Athletes can, however, also qualify if they do not have a world ranking (because they don't have the requisite number of performances) but they have met the standard set by the IAAF (i.e., they have an exceptional performance in the qualifying period.)
I don't believe that this premise has changed in the meantime.
Thus, the vast majority of athletes will qualify via the rankings system and not by entry standards. So, for example, let's presume Christian Coleman makes Top 3 at the Trials. Presuming he has 5 worthy-enough performances in the qualifying period he will qualify because he is ranked in the Top 48 and not because he has run a time better than the IAAF standard.
asgdasdgasdgasdf wrote:
Actually I'm not sure what is the problem that this system is trying to solve:
-Is it the quality of meets? I think they already do their best to attract top talent with the money they have, but I guess I don't know too much about that.
-Is it the ease of getting new athletes into meets? Just because an athlete is silver doesn't mean they're young. I don't see how the two-year window will help young athletes at all.
-Is it the ease of following for spectators? I don't know why you think this two-year sliding scale point system that varies with all sorts of details will be easy to follow.
-Is it the transparency of the invitational system? Maybe it helps, but there's still the issue of which athletes to pick from the various pools.
Not to mention athletes not knowing where they stand. For an event with a qualifying quota of 48 all those athletes ranked say between 30 and 70 will need a coach who's taken classes in calculus just to be able to predict all the changes and how it affects them, especially when it gets to a couple of months before the qualifying period ends.
Overall, I agree. It seems to be a solution looking for a problem.
The current system is just fine as a method of qualifying for championships. Yes, like the proposed new system, it's not perfect but at least it's transparent and easy to understand for all concerned.
Go, Laura! wrote:
Getting rid of heats is an awful idea (and it's not the reason why finals are slow. That so much is at stake is the reason).
Of course it's why finals are slow. Nobody is 100% after heats. The stakes are not a factor, though not having pacemakers is. How to fix that? Allow pacemakers.
The reason nobody watches regular meets is that NOTHING AT ALL is at stake . Then they tune into the champs and find themselves suffering through the days-long torture of eliminating slower runners who DON'T BELONG in a world championship. It's dull and meaningless. Stop thinking about what you, the tiny minority who think that's great, want to watch and think about what would actually be popular.
The IAAF published a much more detailed summary of the qualification system in anticipation of including the new ranking system as a qualifying method for Doha.
An auto standard is an auto standard. if you hit the standard, you are qualified from IAAF's point of view. Whether you are selected by your federation has always been up to the federation and that will continue to be the case.
I'm confident USATF will continue to place a priority on the auto standard. As of the time of the American Trials, the final IAAF rankings used for qualifying to Worlds won't even be known.
There is no possible way even to estimate what proportion of athletes will qualify by the standard as opposed to qualifying by ranking until the standards are set. And I suspect that won't happen until November 2020 for 2021 Worlds.
Yes, it's more difficult to predict and understand but we will give some help. Before different big competitions and events we will provide provisional rankings at the cut-off date, some months before that day.
Also, the 2-year rankings are better than 1-year rankings, it provides more consistency from the athletes and also, if you have an injury or a similar problem it won't affect you that much. Let's say a world class athlete gets injured 11-12 month out of a big championship, until he gets over it and is able to produce 2-3 world class performances the qualifying cut off date might have past. However the athlete gets back almost to his best in time for the championship, but he hasn't got the points. That's why a 2-year rankings help.
However, points older than 1 year are deducted so a performance 18 months old won't corelate to the same performance established 3 months ago. So either they set exceptional marks 12-24 months ago or they also have good performances in the current year.
Also, let's put it this way, an athlete qualifies by his performances older than 12 months even though he's been out of form in the current year. True, he qualifies for the championships or keeps his label and gets his appearance fees, etc, BUT next year he is TOAST, as his top marks will be wiped out of the rankings, and only his current performances will stay, thus he can fall from let's say a GOLD label to a BRONZE label all of a sudden. Nobody wants that and i guarantee you'll see more consistency from the athletes.
These comments are in respect of the marathon only. In addition, these comments mainly relate to those athletes / countries that are on the fringes of selection.
I understand the rationale for a ranking system for platinum, gold etc. label athletes. It creates a smaller pool of athletes that may create more head to head match ups. Whether this comes to fruition I am not so sure. We will see.
But using it as a path for qualification for a championship, in my view has many flaws and leaves qualification for many down to chance. Running is supposed to be simple. This system is not.
(1) Running a marathon is hard and requires luck. The IAAF now requires those on the fringes to nail it twice
The ranking system requires two performances during the qualification period. Either two marathons or one marathon performance and one similar event.
A similar event can be a 30km (only 3 courses are approved by the IAAF), a 25km, half marathon or 20km. Similar event's have much less weighting, for example, a 2:14:33 marathon is the equivalent of a comparatively faster 62:43 half marathon.
This means that marathon runners of this level will likely require 2 marathon performances during the 18 month selection window from 1 January for Tokyo.
In 18 months a marathoner will likely have 3 realistic shots at hitting the time. The IAAF is requiring those athletes to nail 2 out of three. Two days with bad weather out of the three but you nail the race in good weather? Bad luck.
To make it worse, the IAAF world champs is being held in a desert, where despite a midnight start temperatures will be near 30 degrees celcius. If you run world's you lose one of your 3 qualification opportunities.
(2) Qualification to a championship will not be confirmed by the ranking system until 1 month prior.
If you are on the fringes how the hell do you plan. A marathon takes months of preparation to perform at your best. Those on the fringes are already against it, so a lack of certainty of qualification hinders those runners the most.
(3) Placing points are very significant in terms of ranking points scored.
This creates opportunities for those who are fortunate. If enough Kenyan runners DNF from a gold label marathon and you finish 7th? You obtain 40 points and your 2:15:01 marathon now turns into a 2:12:42. Bad luck to the runner that ran the marathon where 8 African runners finish in under 2:10 and runs 2:14. No placing points for you, try again in 6 months.
The IAAF has also attached points to other races of significance - for example national championships. An athlete is awarded 45 points for winning your national champs? This is worth about 90 seconds off your time on the points table.
Bad luck if you live somewhere with an unfavorable climate and it is impossible to run a fast time. In this situation, the IAAF has dictated that what you want to do is run a race where the majority of Keyans drop out of the race...
The marathon is an event where you only have so many attempts during a qualification period. It is a reality of the sport that so many African runners will finish in the top 8 of marathons and accumulate points for IAAF labeling purposes. The very very very large majority of those African runners will not be selected to run at a championship - and therefore, the very large majority of placing points will be wasted for qualification purposes (but not label purposes). Those who are lucky enough to have enough Africans drop out of their field might have their 2:16 turn into a 2:13. Should the 2:16 runner have precedence over a 2:14 runner in this circumstance? I say this is unfair.
Attaching placing points to marathons makes sense in terms of label athletes and possibly for track events for qualification purposes where there is a season (although good luck if you are from the Southern Hemisphere or a college athlete). However, there isn't a marathon season. Runners race 2x or 3x a year. Qualification should not be determined by those who are lucky enough to be in a race where enough Kenyans drop out to keep the powder dry.
This qualification system is very complicated
To quote Seb Coe when the ranking system was introduced: "For the first time in the sport's history, athletes, media and fans will have a clear understanding of the competitions from the world through to global events, allowing them to follow a logical season-long path to the pinnacle of athletics' top two competitions."
The rationale of applying the ranking system to the marathon doesn't make sense. There is no build up of a season in a sport where athletes run 2x or 3x a year.
Fans aren't looking at the ranking to see, oh Jared Ward ran 2:14 today, but finished 6th, so this is worth 1120 points which is the equivalent of a 2:12 and this ranks him 72nd on the ranking list when applying a 3 per country basis to the ranking system. So at this stage he has qualified. But there are 5 big marathons left this season, where some runners may knock him out of the top 80. It's very confusing.
If the Olympic standard was say - 2:14, it would create some excitement at races to see a local competitor sprint down the home straight to qualify for their Olympic dream. This provides narrative in a sport that is, in reality, a sea of African runners.
80 marathon runners at Tokyo
Not directly related to the ranking system, but it is very sad to see the Olympic marathon field limited to only 80 runners.
In Olympics that didn't have a boycott, 1972 is the last time 80 or less ran the Olympic marathon (74). Where boycotts were in effect, Moscow 1980 had 74 entrants, Montreal 1976 had 67 entrants and LA 1984 had 104 entrants.
Especially when fields such as the race walk (60 walkers! - yes some walker hate) were not materially reduced and so many non-traditional athletic events are included - such as skate boarding and 3x3 basketball (of course not in the IAAF's control).
the fine print wrote:
The IAAF published a much more detailed summary of the qualification system in anticipation of including the new ranking system as a qualifying method for Doha.
An auto standard is an auto standard. if you hit the standard, you are qualified from IAAF's point of view. Whether you are selected by your federation has always been up to the federation and that will continue to be the case.
I'm confident USATF will continue to place a priority on the auto standard. As of the time of the American Trials, the final IAAF rankings used for qualifying to Worlds won't even be known.
There is no possible way even to estimate what proportion of athletes will qualify by the standard as opposed to qualifying by ranking until the standards are set. And I suspect that won't happen until November 2020 for 2021 Worlds.
Have you got a link for that? The most recent thing I can find is from 28 September 2018:
https://www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/2019-iaaf-world-athletics-championships-timetThis re-iterates that:
"Individual athletes can qualify in one of three ways:
- being among the best ranked athletes at the end of the qualification period as per the IAAF World Rankings.
- by Wild Card as the reigning world champion outdoors ... [etc etc]
- by achieving the entry standard within the qualification period in accordance with criteria decided by IAAF. Entry standards, which will be determined on 1 November 2018, will be set for the sole purpose of qualifying athletes with exceptional performances who are unable to qualify through the IAAF World Rankings pathway."
Perhaps Pablo can confirm if this is still intended to be the case?
Have you got a link for that? The most recent thing I can find is from 28 September 2018:
https://www.iaaf.org/news/press-release/2019-iaaf-world-athletics-championships-timetThis re-iterates that:
"Individual athletes can qualify in one of three ways:
- being among the best ranked athletes at the end of the qualification period as per the IAAF World Rankings.
- by Wild Card as the reigning world champion outdoors ... [etc etc]
- by achieving the entry standard within the qualification period in accordance with criteria decided by IAAF. Entry standards, which will be determined on 1 November 2018, will be set for the sole purpose of qualifying athletes with exceptional performances who are unable to qualify through the IAAF World Rankings pathway."
Perhaps Pablo can confirm if this is still intended to be the case?
The standards for exceptional performances are intended for potential medalists only - likely based on the 10th best performance from the previous year. Read this Flotrack article here:
https://www.flotrack.org/articles/6266921-iaaf-walks-back-world-rankings-restores-usual-qualifying-system-for-2019As the IAAF has reverted to the old system for Doha, the current qualification method will continue to apply (hit the standard and you go). Standards will be released by the IAAF in a couple of weeks and will likely resemble standards that we have seen in the past. Read here:
https://www.flotrack.org/articles/6266921-iaaf-walks-back-world-rankings-restores-usual-qualifying-system-for-2019Work Commute Track Club ... yes, I get all that. My point with the poster "the fine print" is that the entry standards will only be used to qualify athletes who don't have a world ranking (through lack of requisite performances) but do have an exceptional performance. However, s/he thinks that athletes with a world ranking who also hit the entry standard will qualify via the entry standard route. It's a minor point really because you'd expect all such athletes to have other performances that make their ranking strong enough to qualify.
By the way, good post earlier on qualifying for the marathon at championships.
If only running had a simple, unbiased and universal metric that could be used to compare and rank performances across venues and countries, courses and continents. Alas...
Let's have a qualification exercise. We suppose the cut-off date for Tokyo would be right now, let's see who is in a particular event.
Tokyo 2020, men's 10,000 metres - field of 32 runners directly in the final
Mo Farah
Joshua Cheptegei
Jemal Yimer
Abadi Hadis
Muktar Edris
Geoffrey Kamworor
Bedan Karoki
Rhonex Kipruto
Mohammed Ahmed
Aron Kifle
Timothy Toroitich
Jacob Kiplimo
Shadrack Kipchirchir
Morhad Amdouni
Abdi Bashir
Hassan Mead
Stewart McSweyn
Abraham Cheroben
Leonard Korir
Richard Ringer
Yeman Crippa
Adel Mechaal
Polat Arikan
Hassan Chani
Al Mahjoub Dazza
Julien Wanders
Yevheniy Ribakov
Andy Vernon
Soufiane Bouchikhi
Anatoliy Ribakov
Awet Habte
Shuho Dairokuno
Reserves
Chris Thompson
Patrick Tiernan
1.Defending olympic champ - Mo Farah
Pablo,
If you want legitimate feedback you need to do more than just list athletes. The IAAF has clearly made changes to their rankings(2 years, platinum levels, etc) Please post or link the exact new criteria and then we can provide real feedback regarding it. Otherwise we are just taking shots in the dark.
Look at it this way: once IAAF has included a time standard as a means of qualification to Worlds, how could it prevent an athlete who hits the standard from gaining entry?
The only practical way would be to have a rule that a federation that has more than three qualified athletes in an event must give preference to those who qualify by ranking rather than by the standard.
But in fact the IAAF's anticipated system for Doha provided no such thing. Rather, it expressly affirmed that federations would have the discretion to select athletes who meet the various qualifying criteria.
From page 2 of the PDF summary of the anticipated, now voided, Doha system:
"Where there are more than three qualified athletes from any one Member Federation, the Member Federation will have the right to enter any three athletes of their choice based on their own selection criteria."
https://media.aws.iaaf.org/competitioninfo/791203d1-be0e-4047-8a42-1b33994d000c.pdfAnd again, for USATF, keep in mind that Trials will be held before the end of the qualifying period and before final rankings can be known.
As for the significance of rankings in determining which athletes are allowed entry to meetings before 2021 Worlds, I think that remains highly uncertain. The information from "Pablo" seems to relate to road events, which is only a small fraction of the athletics universe.
The IAAF had to back off from using the ranking system for Doha and Tokyo because of protests from agents and athletes. Let's see what plays out for track meetings.