Thas sad
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"UKA also asked Reed to take a fitness test consisting of a 2,000m track session which was to be run at 50% of B standard pace."
What on Earth would be the point of that?
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The athlete was 10k runner Kate Reed, she was asked to run a fitness test the eve before her event before finishing 23rd. It's not the only time UKA made Dave Webb, who had qualified for the marathon run a half as a fitness test while suffering with injury. He was then withdrawn. Mara Yamauchi who was also suffering g with injury did not have to run a fitness test and went to the games, dropping out very early in the race.
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rojo wrote:
malarko wrote:
=They once famously forced a 10,000m runner to do a fitness test the day before the 2008 10k to see if they'd let her run, which is absurd.
Please provide proof of that. Can you post it or email me? I'd like to have Jonathan Gault write a feature on that time trial.I found this link about it...
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SleepingFireman wrote:
coach ewe wrote:
how do the GB athletes feel about Jake Wightman getting a medical exemption to skip their trials? (apologies if it's been discussed ad nauseam in another thread already)
i imagine US athletes would have freaked out if we had given Athing Mu a medical exemption to skip the trials, even though realistically she's still the most talented 800 runner we've got and prob the only US woman who could contend for gold. i still prefer our system, as this sort of exemption would end up being abused/political and lead to further distrust of our governing body
The individual athletes involved will obviously have their own self-interested takes but British people don't object to the "first two if they have qualifying times and one discretionary place". It's a better system. We can argue over whether Giles or Wightman is the best third 800m guy but either call is potentially defensible. Leaving Athing Mu out of an Olympic team because she fell in one race is a dreadful system.
What people are annoyed about is the policy of not sending qualified athletes. Even if it's a financial issue they could have "paid qualifying" places and allow people to self-fund if they are a marginal qualifier. Plenty of people would do that to fulfill their Olympic dreams.
i do agree in this instance it's not the right call if Team USA's directive is to bring home medals, but the politics involved picking all those third spots would prob be a nightmare over here with athletes taking USATF to court
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The other thing that their governing body seems to miss is the Olympics isn't solely about the medal haul. It is getting the world together in a sporting event. You know the spirit of competition and all that. Be dicks for world championships if you must but basically trashing the whole point of the Olympics? There needs to be a revolt.
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Molly Seidel was the second place finisher in the US Trials but she came in 3rd in the Olympics. Anything came happen.
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But here is the thing. wrote:
The other thing that their governing body seems to miss is the Olympics isn't solely about the medal haul. It is getting the world together in a sporting event. You know the spirit of competition and all that. Be dicks for world championships if you must but basically trashing the whole point of the Olympics? There needs to be a revolt.
If only likely medalists are to go, you would only have 6 people in each event. The Olympics is about the best of each nation mingling and competing with the best of other nations so there's a cultural exchange. If there were no field caps, you would bet Fiji would send a whole track delegation that would come in dead last in their gym shorts. But these people who are top 30 in the world don't get to go! Empire is dead. They shouldn't go to the World Cup—they never win.
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This is why you don't want a selection committee to pick your Olympic team. Let the athletes self-select. No politics. No bitterness. If you perform well, you're on the team. If you screw up, you have only yourself to blame. Not a bureaucracy that robs you.
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NAUSUX wrote:
Sweden's female 1500m national champ (who could get in on ranking) is being left off as well.
We have field athletes who are ranked just outside the top 20 in the World Athletics rankings who aren't going, a total of 9 track and field athletes. Apparently our Olympics federation have decided that you don't deserve to go to the Olympics unless they think you have a chance at making the top 12, and their requirements used to be top 8.
An absolute disgrace, and there's a guy competing in sailing who had the qualification standard and didn't get picked who's suing the Swedish Olympics Federation over this.
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no to tourism wrote:
they wouldn't fight for medals anyway.
uk swimming started doing that, and the results proved they were right.
no more tourists.
Great reasoning! In fact, we don't need to hold the Olympics. We should give the medals directly to the three top ranked athletes/countries in every single event, and save a bunch of money. In particular, all the money spent on Olympic delegations full of individuals with tremendous per diems who do not compete (I guess those would be the tourists, as opposed to the athletes who actually are performing the tasks that the Olympics are all about).
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Social Scientist wrote:
The proof is public:
A fuller account is here...
She couldn't even jog allegedly on arrival at the champs. She was asked to do a very light session to just demonstrate she'd be able to run. She then ran it as a flat out time trial (note comments that she was asked repeatedly to slow down).
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malarko wrote:
Tiptree77 wrote:
Seb deserves same vitriol as UK Athletics. Google his interview re UKA denying invited athletes admission to world indoors. He pretends he’s for protecting the audience from seeing inferior athletes, which is absurd when you realize the UKA was denying a Scottish/UK audience the chance to root for 17 qualified UK athletes.
And no one in UKA with the guts to say, “Actually, we’ve mismanaged our finances and don’t have money for the most important part of our mission”
At world indoors and for the Olympics, athletes have been saying they’ll pay their fees, travel, accommodations, etc., but the UKA needs to pretend there’s a principle at stake.
Not only will athletes retire, but younger athletes won’t take that fork in the road and choose a life of sacrifice and dedication when years of work can be thwarted by a truly despicable (and broke) federation.
"Protecting the audience from seeing inferior athletes" when he's referring to world class but maybe not quite medal-winning class athletes is massively elitist and frankly utter negligence, of a kind that in a just world would see him booted from power and the door locked behind him forever. It's actually a nauseating statement for a guy in his position to make.
Very,very, well said.
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ck3237 wrote:
Molly Seidel was the second place finisher in the US Trials but she came in 3rd in the Olympics. Anything came happen.
Such an excellent point. Keep forgetting the Trials was her debut!
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Fir the record, many European (and some Asian) countries have such policies or used to have them.
What is completely missing from the discussion is funding. Someone has to pay the bill for an athlete to realize their dream. Why would that dream have an inherent right to be realized over those of other people with talent not in sports within a society? You can't expect the whole society per se to have the (admittedly beautiful) idea of the Olympics as a priority.
Now, my understanding is that the British NOC does not receive direct taxpayer money, they have to raise the money with events and findraising independently? Can someone confirm? So at least no responsibility to the taxpayer here. Other countries' NOC do use taxpayer money to send athletes (I think Sweden does, but not sure).
I'm not saying the UK selection is justified, I am merely pointing out that the outcry here is very one-sided and i would like to know who really foots the bill or if the NOC mismanaged funds before judging this call. Did the athletes get "screwed" or did their Olympic trip not get priority over some other legitimate use of the funds in society? I don't know but this should at least be in this conversation.
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taxpm wrote:
Fir the record, many European (and some Asian) countries have such policies or used to have them.
What is completely missing from the discussion is funding. Someone has to pay the bill for an athlete to realize their dream. Why would that dream have an inherent right to be realized over those of other people with talent not in sports within a society? You can't expect the whole society per se to have the (admittedly beautiful) idea of the Olympics as a priority.
Now, my understanding is that the British NOC does not receive direct taxpayer money, they have to raise the money with events and findraising independently? Can someone confirm? So at least no responsibility to the taxpayer here. Other countries' NOC do use taxpayer money to send athletes (I think Sweden does, but not sure).
I'm not saying the UK selection is justified, I am merely pointing out that the outcry here is very one-sided and i would like to know who really foots the bill or if the NOC mismanaged funds before judging this call. Did the athletes get "screwed" or did their Olympic trip not get priority over some other legitimate use of the funds in society? I don't know but this should at least be in this conversation.
Scroll up on the thread. The admins of UKA are taking MASSIVE salaries. At least compared to how much the athletes get. The head got 200 thousand pounds last year. As that is happening they can not send athletes to France. It is really sad that such a corrupt organization has not been cleansed of all these people determined to ruin it.
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Back in 2012 wrote:
They did the same crap back in 2012 (the year they even hosted the Olympics) and tried to leave a third spot in the men's marathon empty despite Lee Merrian being under the Olympic standard and being their top finisher at the London marathon. So the running community came together, made the public aware and the news involved. They put enough pressure on the UKA to add him and guess what? He was their top finisher in the 2012 London Olympic Games. Go figure.
UKA sucks. So much drama and politics.
That's the only way anything changes. Organizations in positions of power need to feel scrutiny by public and media. Otherwise they are content to sit back behind their little pronouncements.
Duplantis should speak out in Sweden. I doubt it means enough to him. Hodgkinson has enough weight to do the same in Britain, along with Adam Peaty. More than anything it would be glorious if Phoebe Gill took the lead on this at 17. She would be a beloved legend before running an Olympic race.
The United States never would have reversed course on that world U20 championships later this summer without feeling the heat.
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Koltrast wrote:
NAUSUX wrote:
Sweden's female 1500m national champ (who could get in on ranking) is being left off as well.
We have field athletes who are ranked just outside the top 20 in the World Athletics rankings who aren't going, a total of 9 track and field athletes. Apparently our Olympics federation have decided that you don't deserve to go to the Olympics unless they think you have a chance at making the top 12, and their requirements used to be top 8.
An absolute disgrace, and there's a guy competing in sailing who had the qualification standard and didn't get picked who's suing the Swedish Olympics Federation over this.
The Dutch federation was using the same criteria to exclude golfers, arguing that they didn't have a chance at top 8. That's so asinine. In golf the difference between 8th and 15th can be 1 or 2 shots.
Fortunately the most prominent excluded Dutch golfer sued the federation and won his case:
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I have been involved in BA teams in the past and the amount of random admin staff they take to a championship is staggering. They take almost as many support staff as athletes & very few of them are of any use - they seem more keen about hitting the bar afterwards than helping an athlete get to the call room on time.
BA is effectively out of money. They cannot afford to pay for athletes to travel to the Olympics. The BOA pays for the places of athletes who they deem high enough quality. This seems to be athletes with a top 8 potential, as this is what UK Sport funding is based upon. I believe that's tax payer funded. So BA would have to foot the bill for any athlete who does not hit their higher standards. As it stands they can't afford to pay for these athletes, and won't offer a self funded option - to save face?
It's been rumoured since 2015 or so that BA weren't taking teams due to finances. I believe they admitted this for world cross country in Uganda. If you look at Barry Fudge's (former head of BA endurance) he essentially states it's all about cost and BA will never admit this.
I've heard that European champs teams might become "self funded" as UK Sport will no longer fund them - they are not classed as elite performance anymore. The pros of this - at least they might take a full team since they don't foot the bill. Cons are obviously financial to the athletes - most British athletes don't make a lot (if any) money from the sport.
I'm sure if the public knew of the financial issues stopping athletes going to the Olympics they would step in and help crowdfund. Of course it should not be their burden to do this, but I feel like the media attention it would gain would attract sponsors to help fund individual athletes spots to the games.
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i dont see why i should pay for a bunch of entitled useless athletes who cant make the grade go on a jolly.
look at Reed, clearly these athletes are just taking the mickey and uka are acting seriously, professionally, and fairly.
bunch of commies once more on this board.
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