This time a year ago, pre Shelby's ban, if Cranny pulls out of a stand alone 10k trials saying she is feeling burnt out and wants to focus on the 5000, people might be disappointed but broadly would think little of it.
Problem is, Shelby got banned and BTC have butchered the handling and communication of the ban every step of the way. The press conference full of misleading statements followed by radio silence, broken only by Shelby inserting herself unwanted back into the sport's narrative every few months. Most recently just days ago, in a podcast where she doubles down on misleading statements and half truths that have been disproven time and again in past months and without mentioning why two newer BTC athletes went running the other way saying if they knew how Shelby was around the team (notice they didn't get into specifics?) they would have left in August/never joined.
BTC has said *nothing* except for unwavering support of Shelby and given zero explanation for their actions.
That's the backdrop this is happening against. At the end of the day, this isn't an Elise Cranny problem but a BTC problem: they've broken the trust of the wider track and field community and all they have done since then is dig themselves a deeper hole. To any Cranny super fans - it isn't personal, it's just the sad byproduct of how Schumacher and co have handled the last 12 months.