Excellent research by Gault showing that roughly two-thirds of time qualifiers for men’s and women’s finals of the 1500 and 5,000 over the last decade came from the second semifinal.
Also noteworthy from the article is this change is something that many people, presumably athletes and coaches, were advocating for:
In explaining its reasoning for the change, World Athletics said, “There has been widespread feedback on the significant disadvantage to athletes in the first heat or semifinal, and advantage to athletes in subsequent heats or semifinals, when receiving qualification based on time due to knowing what is required to qualify.”
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right. consider also everyone there has hit the qualifying standard. they can all run that time* but championships is about racing. the best will sort themselves out
And then the semis are seeded based on the results of the first round.
Also, it's just as likely that the more stacked heat runs first and sets off slowly (as has happened in the past), and then posts a slow overall time. The second heat - which is less talented - is then run more like a time-trial, and inferior runners make it through to the final as one of the "small qs" because they've essentially been paced through to a fast time.
You just disproved your own point. The prelim rounds of the 1500 have 6 auto qualifiers each, 4 sections total. Nobody cares who wins or gets 6th because the result is the same.
Now those meaningless places can be devastating because it WILL results in unbalanced semi-finals where you might get 9 of the top 10 runners in world ranking in the same section.
At least with time qualifiers you can make the race honest and possibly earn the time qualifier even if you don't hit the auto. Now it's 100% luck of the draw.
And then the semis are seeded based on the results of the first round.
Also, it's just as likely that the more stacked heat runs first and sets off slowly (as has happened in the past), and then posts a slow overall time. The second heat - which is less talented - is then run more like a time-trial, and inferior runners make it through to the final as one of the "small qs" because they've essentially been paced through to a fast time.
You just disproved your own point. The prelim rounds of the 1500 have 6 auto qualifiers each, 4 sections total. Nobody cares who wins or gets 6th because the result is the same.
Now those meaningless places can be devastating because it WILL results in unbalanced semi-finals where you might get 9 of the top 10 runners in world ranking in the same section.
At least with time qualifiers you can make the race honest and possibly earn the time qualifier even if you don't hit the auto. Now it's 100% luck of the draw.
And then in that hypothetically stacked semi 6 runners will advance to the final. I don't care if you don't make the final if you can't even finish in the top 6 in your semi, however loaded it is. You just lost to 6+ people. That's not "luck".
You just disproved your own point. The prelim rounds of the 1500 have 6 auto qualifiers each, 4 sections total. Nobody cares who wins or gets 6th because the result is the same.
Now those meaningless places can be devastating because it WILL results in unbalanced semi-finals where you might get 9 of the top 10 runners in world ranking in the same section.
At least with time qualifiers you can make the race honest and possibly earn the time qualifier even if you don't hit the auto. Now it's 100% luck of the draw.
And then in that hypothetically stacked semi 6 runners will advance to the final. I don't care if you don't make the final if you can't even finish in the top 6 in your semi, however loaded it is. You just lost to 6+ people. That's not "luck".
This is as good move for marketing the sport to non-runners. Unless you're an athlete then you have no knowledge of nor do you care about times. No one (outside of running) gives a sh*t what Boston or New York marathon was run in, they care who wins. Trying to explain to an outsider that running 55 second laps for 1500m is amazing, to the laymen they have no concept of pace and seeing a train of runners in single file following a no-named pacer is boring. Where's it's a very easy sell to someone to say, top 6 qualify and then just enjoy the competition. If it's run in 3:30 or 3:50 is irrelevant to everyday person but they can relate to position.
Ask a non-running work colleague what is more impressive, running a 5k in 14:30 or completing a marathon in 5 hours. Almost 100% will say the latter... simply because a marathon is further and therefore harder. Obviously a runner will know that is nonsense but if you want more fans of the sport to take an interest you need an easy entry point and adding things like 'fastest automatic qualifiers' is an added barrier which isn't needed. We have the Diamond league for fast time trials for the purists. Worlds and Olympics should be able competition.
For the Paris 2024 1500 it seems like the plan to eliminate small q (for 1500-5k-3kSC) is in conflict with the plan to add repechage (for 200-400-800-1500-400H) ?
When Cheruiyot and Jakob are down or retired, the long history of the event suggests heats will be as slow as 2016 again if there are no time qualifiers.
Slow heats have several unattractive features for fans.
A. There is nothing to get excited about (they ran 3:44. Yawn. No threads about that.).
B. Scrubs with strong kicks off of slow paces get in, and have no chance in a fast final, while stalwarts are out.
C. More runners fall in slow races. We see that from 800m (not affected here) to 5000m and frequently on the women's side especially. Sometimes it happens to the favorites and we're deprived of a great final accordingly.
D. Chance effects of positioning in a large crowd on the last lap have major consequences when contenders are bounced because they got boxed.
E. Team tactics have a much bigger effect. Kenyans and Ethiopians often qualify enough people to box out a leading rival in a slower heat. This happens even in the NCAA. Last year, the University of Washington had enough guys in the 1500m final to box out Mario Garcia Romo, who ended up not winning despite running 3:30 later that summer at World's.
Jonathan Gault has a column up on the changes and has run the numbers. At a Worlds, a time qualifier hadn't come from the first heat of the men's 1500 semis since 2003. It's a great change. I just wish they'd made the same change for the 800.
This makes no sense. If a majority of the qualifiers are from Heat #2, then clearly those guys are running faster and gunning for a "q". Why is this bad for the spectators and the sport? You want to qualify? Run fast! Athletes taking risks in blowing off the doors from the gun is what makes the sport exciting.
Slow heats have several unattractive features for fans.
A. There is nothing to get excited about (they ran 3:44. Yawn. No threads about that.).
B. Scrubs with strong kicks off of slow paces get in, and have no chance in a fast final, while stalwarts are out.
C. More runners fall in slow races. We see that from 800m (not affected here) to 5000m and frequently on the women's side especially. Sometimes it happens to the favorites and we're deprived of a great final accordingly.
D. Chance effects of positioning in a large crowd on the last lap have major consequences when contenders are bounced because they got boxed.
E. Team tactics have a much bigger effect. Kenyans and Ethiopians often qualify enough people to box out a leading rival in a slower heat. This happens even in the NCAA. Last year, the University of Washington had enough guys in the 1500m final to box out Mario Garcia Romo, who ended up not winning despite running 3:30 later that summer at World's.
A. No threads about Centro's Olympic win? Really? And "threads" is your metric for attractiveness of the sport? B. As opposed to scrubs who can't close and finishing 8th in a slightly faster heat getting in? C. Yes, sometimes runners fall. This isn't a time trial - part of being a good track runner is being able to run in a crowd. It's a skillset, not a bubble. Sometimes, heaven forbid, you might even get jostled. D. Positional tactics matter?! In a race?! That would be terrible. E. Positional tactics matter?! In a race?! That would be terrible.
You seem to want track to be something it is not. Time trials in a vacuum are not exciting to everyone and not what the sport is about. If guys with no kick want to move on, they are still welcome to push the pace and try to drop people, aka racing.
For the Paris 2024 1500 it seems like the plan to eliminate small q (for 1500-5k-3kSC) is in conflict with the plan to add repechage (for 200-400-800-1500-400H) ?
the only thing dumber than this change is the repechage. you are better off just eliminating those athletes who you force to race the repechage because they are going to be exhausted for semi.
there is NO INTEREST in watching a repechage round of slower athletes that are running 5-6 seconds slower than Karsten Warholm and Sydney McLoughlin in the 400h, for example.
You brought up a good point though, why would World Athletics implement two difference changes in back-to back years? It makes them look disorganized. Poor planning.
Repackage heats make sense because people have bad races or get boxed or fall down or hit hurdles. What if Warholm trips over the last hurdle? I want him to run again.
Repackage heats make sense because people have bad races or get boxed or fall down or hit hurdles. What if Warholm trips over the last hurdle? I want him to run again.
Why? In that case he failed to qualify. He should just get an automatic entrance into the championship final in your opinion?
1st even if 90% of "q" 's come from the final semi, there is still 10% of the time the 1st heat did have "q" 's in it. Leaving the semis more suspenseful. There is always the bubble person and their fans watching the clock intently in the final heat. Where's the drama in eliminating that from WC's? The best drama events in Track and Field are the Field events as they have inherently more drama, at any moment the order can drastically change and there is such a suspenseful atmosphere to the field events. This rule loses most of the suspense from these Track events.
2nd as a fan I don't want to see an elite race slower than what average college kids can run. What are those in favor going to say when the women's semis are faster than the men's? or a women's semis wouldn't win a HS state meet? Yes, its about racing but would you watch a ball sport's game if they took turns scoring without any defense until the 4th quarter?
Anyone can jog 90% of a race and have a big kick. The true exciting racing comes from a honest pace with multiple surges, different runners tactics, etc.... I don't consider it racing when everyone runs slow and then kicks the last 200-300, that's middle schoolish.
Anyone remember Ben Blankenship's grueling ordeal waiting for the official FAT to come up, where he was bumped by only 0.13 by Wightman in 2019 semi's? can't get more suspenseful than that.
Side note 2008 and 2016 Olympics heat 1 had the 2 "q" 's and in 2008 Lagat in heat 2 was denied "q" by .02. How shocking was that? Name a more memorable semi then that one? Lagat the double WC gold in 07 not making the final in 08. (It appears the heat 1 runs faster at Olympics then WC's.)
Real stat would be medalists. Are there more medalists in the faster 2nd heat vs the 1st heat or does 1st heat get the real advantage for not having to work as hard in semi's?
Face it the little "q" leads to a lot more drama and fan interest.
In theory, I like the little q's. They sound like a good way to balance out heats of different levels, and provide an incentive for races to go fast. But in practice, the system hasn't worked at the elite level. Gault's data is pretty damning, and when you're that far away from being equal, you've got to try something else. Perhaps the new system will turn out to be even more unfair, in which case they can always return to the current one, or try something different.
That said, I'm struggling to process this part of Gault's article:
From 2011-22, 1500-meter runners in the second semifinal at a global outdoor championship were twice as likely to earn a time qualifier to the final as runners in the first semifinal. In fact, you’d have to go back to 2003 to find the last time a man earned a time qualifier to the 1500-meter final at a World Championship from the first semifinal.
So on one hand, in the 1500m semis since 2011 for both men and women, one third of 1500m time qualifiers have come from the first heat. On the other hand, NONE of the male time qualifiers have come from the first heat in that time frame, or even from several years before. This would imply the following break-down for time qualifiers:
Men: 0% first heat, 100% second heat Women: 67% first heat, 33% second heat
This would be a huge discrepancy between the sexes that should be reflected in the qualifying policy. But I think I've misunderstood something because this is just far too improbable.
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