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Post by ahutch on Mar 18, 2010 15:26:22 GMT -5
The selection criteria and standards for Commonwealths have been posted here: www.athletics.ca/admin/..%5Cfiles%5C%5CNationalTeamPrograms%5CNationalTeams%5CSelectionCriteria%5C2010%20COMMONWEALTH%20GAMES%20SELECTION%20CRITERIA_EN.PDFIt's an interesting document. Apparently the delay was because AC was arguing with Commonwealth Games Canada about the size of the team quota. The number for now is 35 athletes. I haven't done a detailed comparison with last year's rankings, but the standards look lower than I would have expected for a team that size. e.g. 1500m A standards of 3:39.32 and 4:10.24, 5000m A/B of 13:26.17/13:29.00 and 15:16.99 and 15:25.00. Certainly not easy standards, but with a quick look at last year's rankings I see 34 athletes who made A standard (not sure if I double-counted anyone who made A in two events). Given that up to 12 quota spots will be reserved for men's 4x100 and women's 4x400 (the two London-focused relays), that suggests that it will take an A standard to make the team. Not only that, but placing at Nationals may prove to be crucial. That could be bad news for people like Angela Whyte, competing against two (other) Olympic finalists (who could thus be bumped out by someone who finishes first or second in a weaker event). One thing I was sort of glad not to see in the document was a convoluted flowchart of how many standards of which type you need to hit during what three-week windows. Unless I missed, it's pretty straightforward: make the standard, place at nationals, make the team. |
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Post by Chris Moulton on Mar 18, 2010 16:47:15 GMT -5
There is also the six athletes who were top 16 at Worlds (Reed, Lopes-Schliep, Abdulai, Frizell, Felicen and Theisen) who only need to achieve B standard and place top 3 at Nationals so that likely leaves 17 spots.
I counted 19 with A when you take out the pool of athletes who would fall into the dandy dozen and the aforementioned six. Of those 19, eleven of them are in events where there are more than one athlete who has A standard, with three in the men's 1500, two in the men's high jump, two in the women's 1500, one (plus the additional two top 16 in the women's hurdles), two plus (the additional one in the women's long jump) and one (plus the additional one in the women's hammer throw) . It should make for a very exciting National Championships!
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Post by HHH on Mar 18, 2010 20:45:52 GMT -5
Why are some of the B standards the same as the A standards?
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Post by ronb on Mar 18, 2010 21:05:13 GMT -5
Haven't read the document yet. But this sounds a "Back to the Future" idea. Are we really going to go back to the Good Old Days, when athletes knew what they to run to get into the"selection pool", and then show up to race at Nationals? What a novel concept !!!
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Post by ahutch on Mar 18, 2010 21:44:33 GMT -5
Why are some of the B standards the same as the A standards? I don't know the details, but presumably the two set of standards were calculated using different algorithms. Then when the A standard turned out to be lower than B standard, they were set to be identical. It looks like almost all the B standards are identical to the IAAF B standards from Worlds last year (and when they're different, the Commonwealth standard is easier). I'm just guessing here, but I'd expect the A standards were calculated based on performance lists from, say, the last five years using Commonwealth countries only. So the steeple standard, for example, is relatively tough. But in events where European countries are strong (throwing events, women's 1500 and steeple, etc.), both A and B standards are weaker than even the IAAF B standard. |
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Post by thinskinned on Mar 18, 2010 22:51:22 GMT -5
There is also the six athletes who were top 16 at Worlds (Reed, Lopes-Schliep, Abdulai, Frizell, Felicen and Theisen) who only need to achieve B standard and place top 3 at Nationals so that likely leaves 17 spots. I counted 19 with A when you take out the pool of athletes who would fall into the dandy dozen and the aforementioned six. Of those 19, eleven of them are in events where there are more than one athlete who has A standard, with three in the men's 1500, two in the men's high jump, two in the women's 1500, one (plus the additional two top 16 in the women's hurdles), two plus (the additional one in the women's long jump) and one (plus the additional one in the women's hammer throw) . It should make for a very exciting National Championships! I think the assumption of taking the qualifying 100/200/400 athletes out of the 12 relay spots will prove to be incorrect. I think a more realistic assumption is that the 12 reserved spots for relays does NOT include those who qualify individually. I count the same number of A's from last year as you (31) but would look at it as 35 minus 12 = 23spots available...6 of which are relatively guaranteed leaving 17 spots for the rest to fight over. So it appears likely some athletes with A will be left off the team. Hence B standards mean nothing and placing at nationals will be vital. There will likely be "ties" for the final spots (i.e. A standard & same placing at national). How these ties will be broken isn't explained (% better than standard or subjective)...perhaps they don't think it will go that far but I'll bet it will. |
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Post by ahutch on Mar 18, 2010 23:50:13 GMT -5
How these ties will be broken isn't explained (% better than standard or subjective)...perhaps they don't think it will go that far but I'll bet it will. From the document: "Athletes will be ranked within each of the following steps based on calculating the percentage of the top 12 standard of the athlete’s best performance within the Qualifying Period using the IAAF Tables." So there's no ties unless they get really, really unlucky. As for the relay spots, I'm not sure why you think those 12 spots will go to unqualified individuals. The spots are reserved for only two relays (men's 4x100 and women's 4x400), so that's six people per team. If, as expected, we qualify a couple of individual men's 100/200 runners and a couple of women's 200/400 runners, I find it hard to believe that they won't be in the relay pool. |
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wind
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Post by wind on Mar 22, 2010 6:28:50 GMT -5
It will be interesting to see who accepts/wants to go as well. Ive heard from quite a few of the big wigs that they will race in Europs for the summer and opt out of going to India in October.
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Post by thinskinned on Mar 22, 2010 19:05:14 GMT -5
So, I tried that 36hrs rule thing(actually much more), thought I was doing ok but now this has popped to near the top of the pile again so here goes:  ahutch you're exactly right I get a little cynical & my vision/judgement perhaps clouded when it appears to me criteria is written heavily in favour of one group & with obvious disconcern for another. Reserving 34% of the quota for 2 events seems a little excessive. Also, in my view, events that we are certainly not overly strong in. From a distance runners point of view: -I hope Reid runs well this weekend but not too well 'cus if he goes under 28:10 that's going to be pretty annoying. The qualifying period has been set from April 1 onward. Fast 10000m races are few, you'd think Stanford Invite would be included! -10weeks notice that running the Ottawa marathon is MANDITORY. You can't get on the team without at least being in the top 3 at the "qualifying trial". -even if the criteria was known further out, you're still stuck with the choice of a) either running 3 marathons (one to get the 'A', Ottawa to get the top 3 & CG) in 18months or less (qualifying period started May 24,2009) or b) trying to run 2:13:57 in Ottawa which has proven to produce notoriously slow times. [Great run by Eric earlier this year.....he'd still have to run Ottawa if he had designs on competing at CG and hence would have to run 3 marathons in the span of 10months.] And yes, I know, running a marathon or maybe even a 10000m in India is not on the top of a lot of distance runners lists. But the criteria shouldn't be (and probably wasn't) written with that assumption. OK, I feel a little better now  |
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Post by ahutch on Mar 22, 2010 21:26:10 GMT -5
That's a good point about making the Ottawa marathon compulsory on such short notice. That's clearly ludicrous, and if I was an athlete with standard during the qualifying period, I would appeal that provision. (More to the point, if I was an athlete with any hope of getting standard, I would have been in touch with AC at least six months ago to find out their plans.) As it happens, the only person with standard right now is Gillis, who has already stated that he has no intention of running the marathon at CG. Obviously that could change if anyone is running, say, London.
For the 10,000m window, it would be interesting to know whether that was a deliberate decision. There's a longstanding debate about the fact that North American distance runners tend to run their best in early spring at Stanford and Mt. SAC, and be fried by the time the professional season (let alone the championships) start. Particularly with CG in October, I can see setting the window to encourage people to shift their season back a little later, rather than hitting it in late March then trying to hang on for another six months. It's not what I would do, but it doesn't necessarily indicate "obvious disconcern" for distance runners.
As for the relays -- hey, I'm a distance runner too and have my personal preferences. (I loved the marathon standards for Berlin last year, and didn't write any letters to AC complaining that they were biased against jumpers.) But how else do you expect them to do relay selection? The relay teams still have to hit a standard that is FASTER than the IAAF A standard (unlike the other events). So if the relay teams hit that standard, do you think they should only take three members of the team if the other three don't qualify individually? If we want to participate in relays, we have to take a full team -- and that means the "lower" members of the relay get bumped ahead in the selection rankings. They've made that very explicit in these criteria (maybe because of prior complaints?), but I don't see how else they could do it. For what it's worth, the men came 5th last year at worlds and the women came 9th, so it's hard to argue that they're not worth sending.
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Post by thinskinned on Mar 23, 2010 12:26:59 GMT -5
I realise you are playing devils advocate here (not sure why) but;
Seriously, you feel it's the athletes & coaches responsibility to hound AC for selection criteria & information and not the federations responsibility to release such information in a timely manner. Setting aside any discussion about how well such communications go, what do you think the response would be. Some speculation & possibly/likely this or that. Then is the expectation that athletes/coaches devise training/racing plans based of heresay & inuendo.
"As it happens...", you can't do that. The criteria should not be based on the limited knowledge the federation has of what all it's athletes are doing & planning. As it happens, there is no proof that anyone has been killed by Toyota's faulty brake system so we don't need to fix it.
The next paragraph about not being able to peak properly is laughable. I know you know better. I'm sure you yourself prepared to do exactly this, peak twice in a year. As you saying DST & the other experienced coaches of our distance ranks are no capable devising programs that allow athletes to race fast in both March/April and October. Bairu should definitely be excluded from a CG spot since he is peaking even moreso right now. And if that's not enough, how about this....we're talking about 7 days here.
The relay arguements are obviously good ones, I'm playing deils advocate on this one. I still don't have to like it and it's a tough pill to swollow that probably 6-8 worthy (i.e. 'A' standards & 2nd at nationals) athletes are going to stay at home for the sake of these relays.
BTW, I didn't love the WC marathon standards although I think the end result was right (i.e. the athletes that went earned/deserved thier spots). There's a huge difference there though because taking those athletes did NOT bump anyone else off the team. So, good thing you didn't write that letter to AC to complain.
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Post by saskatchewan on Mar 27, 2010 21:19:11 GMT -5
It will be interesting to see who accepts/wants to go as well. Ive heard from quite a few of the big wigs that they will race in Europs for the summer and opt out of going to India in October. I wasn't aware that we had 'big wigs' in Canadian track?? Seriously though, i'm never sure what to make of athletes who willingly would choose to turn down an international spot (World XC, Commonwealths, etc). As Sully has indicated on the boards, there is very little money for anyone other then the top tier of track, so why not take the very limited opportunity in one's lifetime to represent one's country, and then earn your $ with mind off the track. There is a lifetime to chase $ if that is what interests you, but a very limited window to compete internationally. At the end of one's career do you really want to say that you achieved 5 top 5 places at a European GP event (which no-one in the real worlld will understand) or do you want to say that you represented your country x times. Personally I'd chose representing my country every time, and earn my $ later. Just my $0.02. Feel free to rip it apart. |
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Post by journeyman on Mar 27, 2010 21:30:48 GMT -5
Sask: I think the "big wigs" being referred to have already represented Canada several times and are sure they will again, and so are taking the opportunity to make some money. This is a "money summer" for those who run track professionally, i.e., no need to worry about peaking or making standards: just race a lot and pick up as much cash as possible. At that level, they can still fulfill their obligations to run nats, and to their sponsors to run certain meets.
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Post by saskatchewan on Mar 27, 2010 21:44:37 GMT -5
Sask: I think the "big wigs" being referred to have already represented Canada several times and are sure they will again, and so are taking the opportunity to make some money. This is a "money summer" for those who run track professionally, i.e., no need to worry about peaking or making standards: just race a lot and pick up as much cash as possible. At that level, they can still fulfill their obligations to run nats, and to their sponsors to run certain meets. Yes, i understand that. My reference to 'big wigs' was tongue in cheek as virtually no-one in canada is aware professional track exists outside of championships. For all but our two top women hurdlers I can't see many Cdn athletes making more then $50K professionally in a summer. Perhaps i'm completely mistaken about the money but why would a Euro promoter pay a CDN 3:35 1500m runner anything to showup and finish 6th-10th in say Rieti or Rome when they can have 10 Kenyans do the same. Jim Spivey had some great posts on T&F news about his professional contract $ and life on the circuit, and it definitely wasn't great $ even when he was running a 3:49 mile and was an american (as Sully has indicated americans get a lot more $ from american shoe sponsors then do similar Cdn athletes). Not questioning your post in the least, just failing to see why people would choose essentially small $$ over representing one's country. Interesting topic |
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Post by journeyman on Mar 27, 2010 23:25:17 GMT -5
yeah those two were who I was thinking of. I'd say Gary Reed could probably make some money over there, too.
What is Tyler Christopher up to these days?
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Post by saskatchewan on Mar 28, 2010 7:06:00 GMT -5
yeah those two were who I was thinking of. I'd say Gary Reed could probably make some money over there, too. What is Tyler Christopher up to these days? Forgot about Reed; agree he could likely make some decent money. Would be interested to hear from Sully and other internationals on this topic. Hasn't Christopher unofficially retired? Rather sad that our sport does such a bad job of publicizing itself that we have to speculate on a message board as to the status of our best athletes. |
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Post by Linc on Mar 28, 2010 10:14:15 GMT -5
What about the fact that CG is in mid-October(2 months later than Worlds)?? For some of these "big wigs" who have been on numerous World and Olympic teams, and whose priorities are winning medals at those Championships; the CG extends their season by 1-2 months and would cut into the following years cycle. Not that it couldn't be adjusted, but with Worlds the next summer I could see why that might cause someone to skip CG in order to begin preparations for the following season.
It isn't always about the money...
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Post by HHH on Mar 28, 2010 10:40:53 GMT -5
What about the fact that CG is in mid-October(2 months later than Worlds)?? For some of these "big wigs" who have been on numerous World and Olympic teams, and whose priorities are winning medals at those Championships; the CG extends their season by 1-2 months and would cut into the following years cycle. Not that it couldn't be adjusted, but with Worlds the next summer I could see why that might cause someone to skip CG in order to begin preparations for the following season. It isn't always about the money... Totally agree with you Linc, but this to me is all the more reason to open up these standards a bit more to something closer to what they used for JDLF games this year. Perhaps something in the middle of what they currently have and what they used for Beirut this summer to give our 2nd tier guys/girls some international experience. |
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Post by Linc on Mar 28, 2010 15:10:15 GMT -5
Totally agree with you Linc, but this to me is all the more reason to open up these standards a bit more to something closer to what they used for JDLF games this year. Perhaps something in the middle of what they currently have and what they used for Beirut this summer to give our 2nd tier guys/girls some international experience. I think, that if the quota for athletes was set higher than 35 from the CGC, you would have seen that. They have to work with what they're given... |
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