New 2020 Olympic Standards Posted - They Are WAY Tougher - Will US Olympic Trials take a hit?

Time for the Vaporfly 10%!

Applying your logic wrote:

Bad Wigins wrote:

Exactly what I'm on about. There are 259 runners better than him? But he gets to go and they don't because it's about countries, not athletes. That's just stupid, and it's embarrassing that a country's fans would even want their athletes to qualify that way, knowing they don't really belong.

If nobody but Kenyans and Ethiopians can be in the top 80, then the championship marathon should be only Kenyans and Ethiopians. They earned it. This is why nobody considers the olympic marathon the top race.

Would you prefer Brazil’s soccer team to have 500 players on it, with Iceland’s team only having 3? You know, since they’ve so many more decent players, and what have you.

The entire beach volleyball competition should be comprised of Brazilian ladies

This'll be devastating for instagram hobby joggers. 2:19 is a joke. 2:45 is a massive joke. Good riddance. Time to brag about something else.

Why? If the top 3 haven’t broken 2:11 they can’t participate in the OG per IAAF. So technically if the trials are won in 2:11:45 and only one man who finished 10th has the standard we send one?

Sped redding wrote:

Wrong. Read the rules. Last year there were Americans that finished top ten in Boston and New York. They would be eligible. Running CIM will always be meaningless.

False. Winning CIM last year will count the same in the world rankings as winning the Olympic Trials. They both are national championships. The biggest flaw in the rankings is the Olympic Marathon trials isn't weighted enough. If it's considered to be the same as WMM, then we'd be fine. Or even a iAAF gold level marathon mos t likely.

What happens to all of the people who hit say , 2:12-2:28 in the marathon at Houston and CIM? Do they get a spot in the trials or not?

bleu wrote:

Why? If the top 3 haven’t broken 2:11 they can’t participate in the OG per IAAF.

Wrong

In the ranking system they have NCAA D1 Indoor ranked as highly the "Area U18 Championships" and the "European Youth Olympic Festival"....seems fair

Applying your logic wrote:

Would you prefer Brazil’s soccer team to have 500 players on it, with Iceland’s team only having 3?

There are no team medals in olympic track besides the relays. It is scored on an individual basis and no country is the winner or loser.

I don't care how the FIFA wants soccer to work, but track is definitely not a team sport, and it doesn't matter to me where the best runner in the world is from, only that they are the best. When athletes who might win are excluded by quotas, it's not a legitimate championship, especially if the reason for the quotas is to allow room for athletes with no chance at all.

Please no pacemaker.

There are plenty of medallists at the few Olympics who had "no chance at all". Again, championships are not based on time, but finish order. There are plenty of people who can run fast times who are terrible in a tactical race. Even though the track and field competition is a team event in the sense of earning points, athletes in the Olympics represent their countries not themselves. It is a legitimate championship if each country sends their best athletes. If the US's best athlete beat the top 3 from Kenya and Ethiopia (like Centro in 2016), how is he not a legitimate champion? That's ridiculous.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Applying your logic wrote:

Would you prefer Brazil’s soccer team to have 500 players on it, with Iceland’s team only having 3?

There are no team medals in olympic track besides the relays. It is scored on an individual basis and no country is the winner or loser.

I don't care how the FIFA wants soccer to work, but track is definitely not a team sport, and it doesn't matter to me where the best runner in the world is from, only that they are the best. When athletes who might win are excluded by quotas, it's not a legitimate championship, especially if the reason for the quotas is to allow room for athletes with no chance at all.

I studied the PDF more carefully and it looks like they're just going to take the top N athletes on the world ranking list after the time qualifiers (with a maximum of 3 per country) until they fill out the numbers in each event. This is going to be comical in events like the marathon that a single country dominates -- the number of points required for that last ranked spot is going to be pretty low. What kind of results would it take to be the last qualifier for the marathon by ranking?

Here's the section I don't understand: "If an allocated individual quota place is declined by an NOC, the quota place will be reallocated to the next best ranked athlete in the same event according to the IAAF World Rankings of 1 July 2020, respecting the maximum quota by NOC per event."

Are they saying here that they'll take the next best ranked athlete from the same country, or extend the cutoff by an additional place and take someone from a different country?

For example, say the US has 2 people qualified by time and 2 people qualified by place. What will happen is they will get to take the 2 time qualifiers and the top place qualifier. If the top place qualifier drops out then they can take the second place qualifier.

What happens if the US has 2 people qualified by time and 1 person qualified by place, and the place qualifier doesn't want to run? Are they going to extend that offer to someone from another country and pick up an additional place qualifier? So there will be some countries getting additional invitations as the deadline for declaring nears or passes?

tobirunsultras wrote:

What happens to all of the people who hit say , 2:12-2:28 in the marathon at Houston and CIM? Do they get a spot in the trials or not?

Unless USATF changes anything (which I can’t imagine them doing to exclude anyone who already thinks they’ve qualified), yes those people will get a spot on the line in Atlanta.

Also, to everyone saying downhill races will matter less, won’t they matter more for actual Olympic (rather than just Olympic Trials) qualifying purposes now, since performances at races with more than 1m/km net downhill can now count towards a world ranking (with a penalty applied for the amount of net downhill on the course), whereas before they couldn’t be used as (actual Olympic, as oppposed to Olympic Trials) qualifying times?

David S wrote:

What kind of results would it take to be the last qualifier for the marathon by ranking?

To answer my own question to some extent, I went down the list of top marathon scores and kept track of the number of athletes from each country.

There were approx 150 marathoners in the last olympics, so let's go with that.

To get to the 100th ranked athlete, you have to go to place 658, which corresponds to 1044 points. There are 40 Americans in that group. The slowest finished 10th at CIM in 2:13:51 and ran 1:04:26 at the Duluth Half.

At this point I got bored and demoralized so I stopped.

Say they take 1000th place. There were a couple people in that range who ran 1:04 and 2:23, one guy ran 2:17 and 2:22. That corresponds to 75 Americans.

So it's still pretty close to the old B-standard in terms of time, except it's not the B-standard because some courses count more than others.

El Keniano wrote:

The logical step would be to open up the events to more than three athletes per country. But that’s just too much logic for the IAAF.

Exactly good thinking, just like not letting any non-European teams play at the FIFA World Cup or soccer at the Olympics.

Australia and the US could send 10 swimmers in each event.

China would have all the table tennis players.

Just Great! lol... if an Indian wants to qualify for any of the long distance he/she has to break the national record first

So where does Galen Rupp rank?

Subway Surfers wrote:

El Keniano wrote:

The logical step would be to open up the events to more than three athletes per country. But that’s just too much logic for the IAAF.

Exactly good thinking, just like not letting any non-European teams play at the FIFA World Cup or soccer at the Olympics.

Australia and the US could send 10 swimmers in each event.

China would have all the table tennis players.

Not to mention how the sprints and jumps would be an American + Caribbean swamp, with a few token southern Africans.

This system was obviously dreamt up by some statistician on steroids as it is far too complicated for what is a simple sport to understand. I'm taking the Men's marathon as an example here.

FACT - max of 3 per country

FACT - 2:11:30 gets you a spot PROVIDED your country selects you

FACT - max field size of 80 (not 100 - oh, and those silly doped up run-walkers have a field of 60, like wtf and who actually cares!)

So at the end of the qualifying period we end up with a big ranking list including more than 3 per country. Keep in mind that the list may not actually include some of the sub 2:11:30 guys if they have only run one performance - it's possible and if your country doesn't have the competition for 3 spots then why not secure the standard and then rest up a bit before training your bollocks off.

But to make things easier let's just assume the ranking list does include everyone. So the IAAF will release a 3 per country ranking list. This is the baseline ranking list and does not mean these are the 3 (up to) athletes that will be selected for that country. For someone like Kenya then surely they just pick the 3 they want as they will all be sub 2:11:30, same for Ethiopia and for other countries - if they have more than 3 time based qualifiers then they pick who they want from those time based qualifiers.

It gets murkier when we move to the rankings list. The catch with the rankings is that if you are in the top 80 and you are not selected by your country then your country is potentially giving up that spot and the next available spot on the list is available. Eg if you don't select your 3rd athlete who is ranked 68th then I guess you can select your 4th ranked athlete assuming they would insert into the rankings in the top 80 (your 3rd and 4th ranked athletes may be 68/69 but obviously the 4th ranked guy doesn't show up on the 3 per country list - remove the 3rd guy and he slots in at the same number).

If you don't have another high enough ranked athlete to fall into the top 80 then you lose that spot to the 81st ranked athlete from another country (was 81st, now 80th). It depends how the list is updated if someone isn't selected and it makes sense to just take that one athlete out of the equation and recalculate. If you have a backup athlete for your country then great. If not then you are giving up the spot. I don't think it is right that your country earns say 3 spots on the ranking list then you can send whoever. That "whoever" still has to be in the top 80 once it all comes out in the wash.

If we go back to Rio and if you remember the Road to Rio rankings list where the upper portion was the list of 3 per country and then the lower portion was every other "qualified" athlete (or "also ran"). The 3 per country was based on fastest time and countries didn't always select the fastest athletes, so as the selections went on, the list was updated and sometimes an athlete would go from the bottom "also ran" list to the selected list. Others would also drop off after the country made its selections. The drop from top list to bottom list is what I'm getting at above but I've not seen how this will work going forward.

One thing to remember is that some countries are notorious for not selecting qualified athletes due to their own self imposed tougher standards. It seems some people now think that just because there is an official ranking and you appear in the top 80 then you will get to go. Those same countries will still impose tougher standards which will now be worded around world ranking spot ie must be top 30/40/50 in the world ranking. Along with injuries and doping bans (!) this means that guys in the top 90-100 still have an outside shot of getting to the magic 80. But you won't have a frickin clue until about 2 months out!