American Distance Coach Scott Simmons filed an appeal last week arguing that USATF should follow it's published guidelines and select its 2019 Pan Am Games team based on the rules it posted on its website and that USATF CEO Max Siegel, the AAC rep Moushaumi Robison, and Managing Director of International Teams Aretha Thurmonds all signed and the USOC agreed to which called for the team to be based on 2019 performance lists. USATF argued it wanted to select the team based off of 2018-2019 times. An arbitrator ruled in Scott Simmons' athletes favor.
The reward is linked to below and is pretty straight forward. In December USATF published guidelines saying it would select the team based off of 2019 times, Max Siegel and crew listed above signed the document and at some point after that it was posted on its website in the Pan Am Games section.
USATF's argument was that it really wanted to select the team based off of 2018-2019 times and that initial drafts in October (the official document was signed in December) and on an athlete slack channel it called for selecting the team on 2018-2019 times. It said that is what the Athletes Advisory Council and High Performance Committee wanted. Nonethless this is not what Max Siegel, nor the AAC rep, nor Managing Director of International Teams signed and it published on the website.
The ruling says, "This language subsequently was either deleted by the USOC or was inadvertently ommited from the USOC-approved December 13, 2018 finalized version." (LRC note: it seems highly unlikely the USOC would change the document).
You can see details below. Also a few things are interesting.
1) USATF fought having to pay the $2,000 arbitration cost (because Scott Simmons did not check the box to ask to get paid back) even though it was in the wrong, so the arbitrator ruled the cost would be split.
2) USATF alerted athletes on the team from 2018-2019 times that the arbitration hearing was going on but did not notify athletes who were would have been selected based on 2019 times only that the hearing was going on.
https://www.letsrun.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Arbitrator-Award.pdf
#2 to us shows that USATF is more interested in covering its ass than helping all athletes who may be impacted by this ruling.
Below we are also pasting an email USATF sent out to athletes yesterday about the Pan Am Games situation. It still tries to hide the fact that its published guidelines clearly say the team will be selected on 2019 times. Instead it says, "Unfortunately, the published selection criteria was susceptible to an alternate interpretation." The arbitrator showed that is false and USATF did not even argue. USATF's only argument was that it meant for the rules to be something else than it published.
USATF also did not show the 2019 athletes how they could appeal to get on the team. We believe a party like USATF that is supposed to have all athletes interests at heart should should all of them how they could appeal to be on the team.
M E M O R A N D U M
DATE: July 1, 2019
TO: USATF Athletes
FROM: USATF
SUBJECT: PAN AM GAMES UPDATE
As you are aware, in the last week there has been much discussion about the team selection process for the upcoming 2019 Pan American Games. For nearly a year, USATF and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) have been working closely to ensure that the strongest team possible is in place for the Pan American Games next month.
USATF has communicated with its athletes throughout the process which began in the fall of 2018, including phone calls, multiple emails, "Slack" communications, as well as an in-person information session at the 2018 USATF Annual Meeting. The qualifying window for selection to the Pan American Games team, as advocated for by USATF's Athlete Advisory Committee (AAC) leadership, was January 1, 2018 - June 10, 2019; this has never changed. Unfortunately, the published selection criteria was susceptible to an alternate interpretation.
By way of background, the USOPC requires athletes to register in its system months before competition. USATF reached out to 2,000+ athletes to ensure registration compliance in advance of the potential team selection. Only those eligible athletes who completed the registration process and met the standard would be selected to the team.
Moreover, as has been communicated to all athletes throughout the process, the final team selected is done by the Association of Pan American Athletics (APA). APA sets an athlete quota. The quota for the 2019 Pan American Games is 740 athletes, with each event having an individual quota (field size). The cumulative of the event quotas will reach that number of 740. Notwithstanding the fact that each event has a quota, the APA can arbitrarily ignore the individual event quotas, which is what they have communicated to USATF and the USOPC that they are currently doing. Neither USATF nor the USOPC have any visibility into what standards the APA will use to select athletes OR when the process will be complete. So therefore, the current roster does not yet identify the definitive team, it identifies the potential team, subject to the APA's discretion.
On June 24, USATF posted an initial roster for the 2019 Pan American Games team. Once posted, a couple of internal errors were immediately discovered, and changes were made based on data that had been incorrectly used in the selection process. USATF staff immediately reached out directly to the affected athletes.
On Wednesday, June 26, 2019, USATF learned from the USOPC that a Section 9 hearing was pending from one coach, who was advocating on behalf of three of his athletes. Because the USOPC was submitting athletes for the Pan American Games team that same evening, an expedited hearing was held. Athletes whose spot on the roster could be impacted were promptly contacted via telephone calls and email, and invited to participate in a telephone conference with the USOPC ombudsman, and then later invited to participate in the hearing. The ruling was issued that same evening in favor of the claimants and was narrowly decided in favor of the three (3) athletes who were the claimants only. In light of the narrow ruling, both USATF and the USOPC sought additional clarification from the arbitrator, who further clarified that the ruling indeed only impacted the claimants (not any other athletes). That same evening, the USOPC submitted the official team roster to the APA, in accordance with the ruling of the arbitrator.
USATF promptly contacted the impacted athletes via telephone and email that evening and into the next day.
In light of the ruling, however, both USATF and the USOPC immediately reached out to the APA regarding their late athlete replacement policies, as the possibility does exist for roster changes to again occur after the APA confirms an athletes' nomination in certain circumstances, as described above. Further complicating the selection decisions for the Pan American Games team is the fact that the APA was changing its policies for how it would accept athletes from all countries for the Pan American Games in certain disciplines (as detailed above), hence the perceived delay in additional communication from USATF and the USOPC about the final team. In the interim, however, several other USATF athletes have now come forward seeking inclusion on the Pan American Games team under a 2019 only interpretation of the selection criteria. USATF continues to work with the USOPC and APA and to ensure the best team is selected for the competition and the rights of all athletes are properly considered. We will continue to communicate with the affected athletes in real time and will inform all of you of the end results as soon as appropriate.
We regret the toll that this ordeal has taken on some of our athletes. The entire situation is challenging and we hope that this communication helps in explaining the less-than-ideal situation.