There are many things wrong with what you are saying. You say, "They published two sets of rules, which led to two different sets of qualified athletes." This is downright false, they post one selection procedure, that was signed and dated by the CEO of USATF. This selection procedure is explicit in saying they are using the 2019 performance list, not sure why you are suggesting otherwise. The only athletes who should feel like they qualified are athletes at the top of the 2019 list, there is no way any person who has been around track and field could reasonably read the selection procedures posted and think, "oh yeah my 2018 mark will hold up based on this". Therefore, those athletes who have been wrongly placed on the team due to 2018 marks should not feel entitled to the spots on the team, when everyone hard the rules since December... The victims wouldn't be the people who have 2018 marks and were place on the team on June 26th, the victims are the people who were taken off the team, who in fact have the best 2019 marks, and by all means deserve the spot on the team.[/quote]
We agree that USATF originally put out a selection criteria that allowed only marks from 2019. After that we disagree. USATF put out a new bulletin, after the qualification window had ended, that said they would also allow 2018 marks to count. That was the second set of rules. Their implementation was unfair. On that, we agree. The implementation of any set of criteria was botched. On that, we agree. But they didn't allow the 2018 marks by accident, they said (after the fact) that they were going to do that. They just said it way too late for anyone to react to it or plan for it. This puts the responsibility on USATF.
Once USATF sent the email that said they would be counting 2018 marks, in my mind, it makes those athletes victims if they are not allowed to go.
Now if I had to choose the team, knowing that someone is getting screwed over, I would select the team based on the rules that were in place in December, and not the ones in place since June 22nd. But I still believe that it is 100% the responsibility of USATF to do that and 0% the athletes'.