Ridiculous: UK Athletics may stop sending full teams to the Olympics, will focus on heavy hitters

Brits are more concerned with making sure every cross country course is “UK certified” - muddy and run in awful weather. World XC did not meet their standard so they neglected to send a full squad.

As a viewer, I'm only interested in the good athletes anyhow. Suffering through heats to eliminate these full-teamers is duller than drying paint

I’m kinda wondering who this decision would even impact in future years. It seems like World Athletics’ system is going to root out a lot of the irrelevant athletes. There might be some wonky inclusions like Cross Country runners, but not sure if that’d apply to team GB. Maybe they’ll send fewer marathoners. The sprinters are gonna make it on the relays, the field events are small fields and the 800-5k runners are already pretty cutthroat/competitive. So maybe it’s marathoners and a field athlete or two who is not close to winning a medal…

The Brits have no money anymore due to Brexit.
They should not send anybody anymore unless they pay for themselves.

The way the sport is going is just encouraging even more doping... If you are going to seriously compete with the Kenyans who are already doping in the distance events then what else can you do?

This is ridiculous. Using the UK Athletics logic, their beloved English Premier League should only have 3 or 4 teams as none of the others are really a chance to win the title and even less to win Champions League. That's not the sole purpose of sport - it also has a role to play in inspiration, development, groundswell support.

British Swimming have already been doing this for years.

Do we really want athletics to be like swimming? A BBC article from 2016 said "As the popularity of swimming has fallen over the past decade sports including athletics and activities such as fitness and conditioning have seen participation levels increase by more than 70%."

the problem is the olympics dominates the sport so thoroughly that none of the also-rans get any exposure at lower levels. There is no interest.

Coming from a small country, New Zealand, I can tell you what ends up happening with these idiotic selection policies - you end up critically comparing event to event and only valuing medals as opposed to "better" performances in stronger events.

For example, NZ TURNED DOWN Olympic invitations from the IOC for Zoe Hobbs (WC semi-finalist the following year) and Eddie Osei-Nketia (also a WC semi-finalist) as they were not deemed "capable of achieving a top 16 placing" in arguably the deepest event in the world. The following year, NZ then opted NOT to send Osei-Nketia to the Commonwealth Games, preferring to send two pole vaulters in a field of eight. Not knocking those wonderful athletes but selection policies like this cause friction between disciplines, as funding is based on medals and results not subjectivity. You end up with intra and inter sport friction.

Eg. is a pole vault medal worth the same as the 100m? Is a skateboarding medal worth the same as a 100m medal?

I hope most people would answer NO in both cases but Buckner-esque leaders see the $$$ for a medal and therefore hitting their KPI's.

Osei-Nketia broke the NZ 100m record at the World Championships (10.08) - ironically beating Omanyala, the eventual Comm Games Champion, in his heat - his only real taste of international competition.

He is so dissilusioned with NZ Athletics and the chances he will have in future that he is quitting the sport to take up a spot at the University of Hawaii to play American Football ffs. He's 21.

This is what happens. It's not good for anyone. Why would you take up a sport as a youngster when there is no realistic pathway to the top?

The thing Buckner seems to have forgotten is, Athletics is a truly global sport, don't be a weak little administrator and go for the low hanging fruit.

Good. We should do the same. If you have no chance to medal just save the cash and leave them home.

Ahh yes wouldn't that be great fun as using your logic there would just be fields of three people. Excellent suggestion.

How much money are you saving? What does it cost to send someone to the Olympics? It shouldn't be more than $5,000 max. I bet it's a lot more but all you need is a plane ticket and few days food as everything is pretty much covered in the village.

So we're talking about saving 100k (20 x 5k)? Meanwhile, if you take those people to the Olympics, their teachers, relatives, club mates, neighbors all become fans. They get stories put up on the local tv about them. And that's just for the people that make it. Think of all the storiesin the US about the people just getting to go to the Trials.

So to save 100k you are killing the interest in the event for tens if not hundreds of thousands.

I sure hope they don't cut the numbers of government dignitaries and their friends and families from attending the Games. Oh yeah, don't forget that inbred royal family thingy. Cannot forget the royal family.

So 2017 Jake Wightman didn't make it past the semi finals. UKA should have saved the money and left him at home. Across 2016, 2017, 2019, 2021 McColgan had a best finish of 10th.

What a waste of money. I am sure neither of those athletes learnt anything at those earlier championships that helped prepare them for a world title, and/or a fistful of commonwealth titles/medals in 2022...

Likewise, I doubt Mo Farah gained anything at all from going out in the semis in Beijing 2008. Doubt he used the lessons learnt and disappointment to do anything of note with the rest of his career.

this policy will do nothing but kill the sport. there are levels to everything, and they are destroying a HUGE level that people aspire to.

think of all the people who aspire for that olympic trials marathon qualifying times. and the people below them who they inspire and on and on. If the only level to aspire to is the very best in the world, the sport will not be better off.

i think their idea is that it sets the bar higher and those people who are satisfied to just make the team will reach higher levels. there is logic to this, but i just think it kills the sport, and you will lose more than you gain

Many countries do little “investing” in the development of athletes but then only want to pay for the winners to come to events? Since many countries now just give passports to East Africans, I guess this makes sense. How about when an athlete wins a medal if their parents invested more in their athletics than their home country they hold up a family photo rather than draping themselves in an arbitrary flag? At least in the NCAA the athlete is going to be on some kind of scholarship and so actually receives meaningful support.

Terrible idea… remember when athletics Canada did this with the A+ standards ?

Recently they have adopted the opposite policy, sending as many athletes that are eligible, and I don’t have the right time to crunch the number but im willing to bet Canadian running is in a much better place than in the 90s and will continue to improve.