MightyBurner wrote:Charonda Williams could get a wildcard to the world championships.. Bizarre.
And the Olympic champ Felix doesn't get one...
Olympic champ doesn't get one to the next Olympics, even in team sports...
I am happy with current 3+1 (3 + world champion) and I liked to see defending champion on the start even if totally out of shape in that year (Michelle Perry in Berlin 2009) but World champion deserves that! From now on, if DL winner is in better shape in that year won't be the same
In this case Charonda Williams is lucky that Veronica CB won gold in Daegu, but who knows...maybe Charonda will explode next year and will be in top 3 at US Champs anyway.
MightyBurner wrote:Charonda Williams could get a wildcard to the world championships.. Bizarre.
And the Olympic champ Felix doesn't get one...
Olympic champ doesn't get one to the next Olympics, even in team sports...
I am happy with current 3+1 (3 + world champion) and I liked to see defending champion on the start even if totally out of shape in that year (Michelle Perry in Berlin 2009) but World champion deserves that! From now on, if DL winner is in better shape in that year won't be the same
In this case Charonda Williams is lucky that Veronica CB won gold in Daegu, but who knows...maybe Charonda will explode next year and will be in top 3 at US Champs anyway.
Or she can win the DL, come last in the heats at trials and still go to Moscow.
I have no issue with the DL winner getting a pass. If they can be consistent enought throught the previous year at the biggest competitions on the circuit, they most likely can compete with the best at Worlds.
tgs3 wrote:Seems like a pretty obvious way for Jamaica and any other country in this situation to handle it. Make the 2 wildcards run in the trials and the top finisher of those two gets the wildcard. Most of the time those two will probably be in the top 4 anyway, so it will just be the top four that go.
But the point of a wild card is to give them a pass to the WC If they have to compete for their spot then they are technically defeats the purpose of being a Wild Card.
Exactly, that's supposed to the point. It's a free pass direct to World's, awarded to the top performer throughout a season of the IAAF's crown jewel series. But by not being proactive and allowing multiple wild cards the IAAF has dulled its own "award".
Now a national federation has to decide which is more deserving of a free pass, which is not a position a federation should be placed in, considering that it is the IAAF that issued the free passes to begin with. Yes it may seem odd that one country could end up with 5 representatives in a single event, but if the places are earned, they are earned, and that should be what matters.
toyracer wrote:Now a national federation has to decide which is more deserving of a free pass, which is not a position a federation should be placed in, considering that it is the IAAF that issued the free passes to begin with.
Even before the Diamond League wild cards, the IAAF regulations gave the federations the option to use or not use the wild cards, or to place restrictions on their use. USATF, for example, requires that the defending world champ run at the Nationals/Trials the year of the championships when the wild card will be used. They do that in order to assure that these marquee athletes don't ignore the Nationals and deprive them of attractive entries. And the IAAF permits USATF to do that because they recognize that it is the federations who enter athletes in the World Championships--the athletes don't enter themselves. The federations have a legitimate right to keep control of this, in their regulation and promotion of the sport in their own countries.
Of course, having to choose between two wild cards does add another element to the decision-making that the federations must go through. But it seems to me that giving the wild card to whoever finishes higher in the Nationals or Trials would be a fair and easy solution.
tandfman wrote:..... Of course, having to choose between two wild cards does add another element to the decision-making that the federations must go through. But it seems to me that giving the wild card to whoever finishes higher in the Nationals or Trials would be a fair and easy solution.
fair and easy for the suits maybe, but not so much for the athletes. Particularly anybody who might be on the ragged edge of injury and looking for time to recover. Why add another hard set of competitions for one of your flagship athletes?
IMHO there should simply be a policy set oh, about now that adopts either Position A (the World Champs is far more important than the DL, so that take primacy) or Position B (what you did in one race/jump/throw two years ago isn't nearly as important as the consistency you showed over the whole year 1 year ago).
Daisy wrote:I'd go for B too. It also adds an incentive for athletes to compete for the top prize on the DL circuit.
And deters ducking.
However, there should also be a rule that DL meet organizers cannot refuse a spot to any reigning World Champ who does not demand an appearance fee. That way if any World Champ loses the DL to somebody else because of insufficient appearances, it's due to the champ's own decision to compete sparingly or demand too much money, not the meet organizers' decisions to fill the lanes with others.
Daisy wrote:I'd go for B too. It also adds an incentive for athletes to compete for the top prize on the DL circuit.
And deters ducking.
However, there should also be a rule that DL meet organizers cannot refuse a spot to any reigning World Champ who does not demand an appearance fee. That way if any World Champ loses the DL to somebody else because of insufficient appearances, it's due to the champ's own decision to compete sparingly or demand too much money, not the meet organizers' decisions to fill the lanes with others.
I'd be quite surprised if any meet organizer would deny a place to a reigning World Champ who did not ask for an appearance fee.
toyracer wrote:I vote for C. C = a DL wild card gets access to the WC regardless of a WC wild card already having been earned by the same country. Yes, 5 athletes.
toyracer wrote:I vote for C. C = a DL wild card gets access to the WC regardless of a WC wild card already having been earned by the same country. Yes, 5 athletes.
Agreed.
Agreed.
Honestly, a small part of me wants a D. D = take the top x amount of athletes (to fill up the field) in the world over the past year.
toyracer wrote:I vote for C. C = a DL wild card gets access to the WC regardless of a WC wild card already having been earned by the same country. Yes, 5 athletes.
Honestly, a small part of me wants a D. D = take the top x amount of athletes (to fill up the field) in the world over the past year.
E = The proceeding year's Track & Field News' top-10 gets auto-entry into the WC.
There is an issue that needs to be resolved once this level of importance gets attached to the DL win. In a word: Stewart. As in, 'I do not like these guys and they cannot race in my meet'.
Daisy wrote:I'd go for B too. It also adds an incentive for athletes to compete for the top prize on the DL circuit.
And deters ducking.
However, there should also be a rule that DL meet organizers cannot refuse a spot to any reigning World Champ who does not demand an appearance fee. That way if any World Champ loses the DL to somebody else because of insufficient appearances, it's due to the champ's own decision to compete sparingly or demand too much money, not the meet organizers' decisions to fill the lanes with others.
I'd be quite surprised if any meet organizer would deny a place to a reigning World Champ who did not ask for an appearance fee.
Yeah, the original post makes it sound as if it has already happened. Has it? Why would any meet promoter cut their own throat this way?
26mi235 wrote:There is an issue that needs to be resolved once this level of importance gets attached to the DL win. In a word: Stewart. As in, 'I do not like these guys and they cannot race in my meet'.
And as long as it's an invitational meet, he has every right to do so. But with the wild card the IAAF blurs the boundaries between invitational meet and WC-qualifier.
gh wrote:IMHO there should simply be a policy set oh, about now that adopts either Position A (the World Champs is far more important than the DL, so that take primacy) or Position B (what you did in one race/jump/throw two years ago isn't nearly as important as the consistency you showed over the whole year 1 year ago).
Once it comes down to the federation to decide, isn't it an important aspect who's most likely to succeed at Worlds? And who's more likely to succeed, the defending WC winner or the DL winner?
toyracer wrote:I vote for C. C = a DL wild card gets access to the WC regardless of a WC wild card already having been earned by the same country. Yes, 5 athletes.
Honestly, a small part of me wants a D. D = take the top x amount of athletes (to fill up the field) in the world over the past year.
E = The proceeding year's Track & Field News' top-10 gets auto-entry into the WC.
All of the above, plus defending OG champ. Not gonna happen, though.
gh wrote:IMHO there should simply be a policy set oh, about now that adopts either Position A (the World Champs is far more important than the DL, so that take primacy) or Position B (what you did in one race/jump/throw two years ago isn't nearly as important as the consistency you showed over the whole year 1 year ago).
Once it comes down to the federation to decide, isn't it an important aspect who's most likely to succeed at Worlds? And who's more likely to succeed, the defending WC winner or the DL winner?
Of course, the federation could simply decide to put both the defending world champ and the DL winner on the team, leaving everyone else competing at the trials for only 2 spots instead of 3. And that's assuming that the federation uses a trials system to pick their team. If not, they can name anyone they want to, including both wild card holders.
Given a country that has the system we do, the best thing to do is to start by taking the top 3 in the event at the Trials. Then, if one or both of those three has a wild card, take the athlete who finishes 4th. If none of the top three has a wild card, take the highest finishing athlete who does have a wild card. Simple and fair.
Jamaica is going to end up with two events that have a different WC wild card and DL wild card. M200m and (presuming Bolt places in top 3 tomorrow) M100m.
tandfman wrote:Given a country that has the system we do, the best thing to do is to start by taking the top 3 in the event at the Trials. Then, if one or both of those three has a wild card, take the athlete who finishes 4th. If none of the top three has a wild card, take the highest finishing athlete who does have a wild card. Simple and fair.
I understand what you've written...but isn't the purpose of a wild card supposed to be that the athlete doesn't have to go through the heats-qf-sf-f process to begin with? Isn't that also why the original wild card, i.e. defending champion, that the IAAF issued didn't automatically cut down a countries entries from trials/selection to just two plus the wildcard? And, surely someone in the IAAF must realize that limiting the entries to four devalues one of the wild cards they issue?
No, the purpose is to ensure that the athlete will be at the WCs.
I have no problem with limiting it to four; be grateful that the IAAF is finding ways to get more than three from the deep countries. This way there are two additional top athletes in many cases.
tandfman wrote:Given a country that has the system we do, the best thing to do is to start by taking the top 3 in the event at the Trials. Then, if one or both of those three has a wild card, take the athlete who finishes 4th. If none of the top three has a wild card, take the highest finishing athlete who does have a wild card. Simple and fair.
Not necessarily fair. WC winner doesn't get real wildcard that some other WC winners get (those from countries without DL winner); and WC winner gets treated same as DL winner, even though winning WC is the greater accomplishment.
ATK wrote:But if the athlete has to compete for his wild card spot then there is no assurance...
Exactly. Once the athlete has to compete it's not a real wildcard anymore. The athlete still gets some form of preferential treatment, but an actual wildcard it's not.
The wildcard was added one can argue to get Michael Johnson into the world champs. IOW he and future wildcard owners who were defending world champs would be guaranteed a spot in the world champs with limited stress.
the wild card given to diamond league winners is an attempt to force athletes to compete in the diamond league. this is not a good thing as the diamond league is still trying to get an identity and stability some of the winners are not legit worlds finalist much less medalist more like those who run often yet they get equal bid like someone who goes thru the rounds at a championships. one athlete complained about the bias of a meet organizer, an agent made the same complaint so how can this be seen as a legit free pass of equal status to defending world champ?
If the trials is used as the deciding factor between the DL and WC winners, that means for a WC winner to miss the next WC, all 3 following conditions must occur:
1. Being outscored over the DL season in the year preceding WC, 2. Placing worse than top 4 at the trials, and 3. Being beaten by the DL winner at trials
If those 3 things happen, I don't see an injustice in leaving the world champ off the team (provided the world champ is entitled to a spot in any DL meet they want to compete in, as I mentioned earlier in thread, so they can't lose the DL based on meet organizers' refusals).
18.99s wrote:(provided the world champ is entitled to a spot in any DL meet they want to compete in, as I mentioned earlier in thread, so they can't lose the DL based on meet organizers' refusals).
One issue with that lies in British tax laws, because top athletes (presumably including the WC winner) would most likely lose money by competing there.
18.99s wrote:Outscored = scored more points than. What's your definition of outscored?
It includes participating in the same number of events. And I'm pretty sure Ashmeade only got more points than Bolt in the m200 because he participated in more events.
So K. Borlee just won the DL based on one win plus two third place finishes. No idea what that has to do with consistently being the best over a whole season. Edit: He got his previous points with two 3rd place finishes, not one 2nd place as I thought initially.
Last edited by j-a-m on Fri Sep 07, 2012 12:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
