Rudisha loses...Eaton AOY?? [or Merritt?!]

[toyracer]

The representatives for the Olympic games just happened to be chosen from the results.

And in years without a major championship the fields at Nationals just happen to be much weaker...

Agreed, but that doesn't diminish the fact that Bolt lost at the national trials, twice, this year, and he was running to win.

[Marlow]

3. It is not that difficult to go undefeated if you only compete twice.

TAFNY!!!!
Yeah, and he cherry-picked those meets - ducking the opposition by only showing up for the USA OT and the OG. (the WR was sooooo a fluke!)

[jazzcyclist]

3. It is not that difficult to go undefeated if you only compete twice.

TAFNY!!!!
Yeah, and he cherry-picked those meets - ducking the opposition by only showing up for the USA OT and the OG. (the WR was sooooo a fluke!)

Rudisha also set a WR and won the Kenya OT and OG.

[tandfman]

Obviously, if you say that someone who competed only twice during the year can never be the AOY, then you're saying that no decathlete or marathoner should ever be considered. I'm not sure everyone would agree.

The problem with Merritt as AOY, even if he does set the WR this week, is that he lost two Diamond League races and false started in two others. Rudisha and Eaton also got WRs this year, but Rudisha lost only once and Eaton not at all. Merritt, of course, competed in more meets than Rudisha and Eaton combined.

[Marlow]

Rudisha also set a WR and won the Kenya OT and OG.

And Rudisha is indeed an awesome athlete. As I said before, it's sad that amazing athletes like Rudi and Bolt can't win AOY because they happened to lose on smaller stages, but that's how the AOY game is played. But . . . if Eaton does not win it, yeah, I can live with that too, even as much as I think he should win it.

[Dave]

Let's see Mr. Rudisha pick up a shot or a vaulting pole.

Again? He's done the decathlon thing once. Turned into a sprinter.

Seriously? How did it turn out?

[tgs3]

Obviously, if you say that someone who competed only twice during the year can never be the AOY, then you're saying that no decathlete or marathoner should ever be considered. I'm not sure everyone would agree.

Two competitions is a little on the low side, even for decathletes. Most of them will end up doing 3 decathlons this year. Some will even do as many as 5.

However, I do think indoor events should count for AOY voting, so I'd have no problem with Eaton as AOY.

[Flumpy]

However, I do think indoor events should count for AOY voting, so I'd have no problem with Eaton as AOY.

But they don't count. It's not the same event.

[mump boy]

However, I do think indoor events should count for AOY voting, so I'd have no problem with Eaton as AOY.

But they don't count. It's not the same event.

AOY isn't based on one event, wouldn't count towards Dec No1

I think it should count and if it did i would have no problem with him being AOY

[Flumpy]

Good point.

[Tuariki]

Obviously, if you say that someone who competed only twice during the year can never be the AOY, then you're saying that no decathlete or marathoner should ever be considered. I'm not sure everyone would agree.

You should read what I said. I have never said Eaton, or anyone else with only 2 comps, should not be considered as AOY. However, I am saying that where someone like Rudisha has 9 comps then I would not penalise Rudisha for his latest loss in comparison to Eaton. And while I personally favour Rudsiha for AOY I would not have any problems if Eaton wins.

The problem with Merritt as AOY, even if he does set the WR this week, is that he lost two Diamond League races and false started in two others. Rudisha and Eaton also got WRs this year, but Rudisha lost only once and Eaton not at all. Merritt, of course, competed in more meets than Rudisha and Eaton combined.

If we compare Merrit only to the comps that Eaton competed in OT and OG then both were undefeated but Eaton is rated higher because of the WR. If Merrit sets a WR in the next week or so then does his overall record offset Eaton? IMO it would. I guess IYO it won't. No problem with that. In such circumstances Rudisha, Eaton and Merritt would all be a worthy winner of AOY.

[26mi235]

3. It is not that difficult to go undefeated if you only compete twice.

TAFNY!!!!
Yeah, and he cherry-picked those meets - ducking the opposition by only showing up for the USA OT and the OG. (the WR was sooooo a fluke!)

Rudisha also set a WR and won the Kenya OT and OG.

And he beat the defending World Champion both times, right? The comment is the Eaton only competed twice.

Bolt has a foot in the bucket because he is only 1-1 in both his events versus another individual whom he refused to race on any other occasion. This is one of the costs of ducking -- and in my mind ought to be imposed as much as possible to show the cost of doing so. My guess is that if Bolt had raced the Beast 5-6 more times he would have a couple more defeats.
Ducking so that you do not lose to keep your record clean means that your record is thin, and Bolt's is decidedly thin with a mere single victory over his top opponent in each event -- note that Eaton beat is primary opponent twice in his two competitions.

[mump boy]

3. It is not that difficult to go undefeated if you only compete twice.

TAFNY!!!!
Yeah, and he cherry-picked those meets - ducking the opposition by only showing up for the USA OT and the OG. (the WR was sooooo a fluke!)

Rudisha also set a WR and won the Kenya OT and OG.

And he beat the defending World Champion both times, right? The comment is the Eaton only competed twice.

Youo don't get bonus points for beating 'the defending world champion' !!

How can Rudisha compete with that anyway ? he is the defending World Champ

[tandfman]

If Merrit sets a WR in the next week or so then does his overall record offset Eaton? IMO it would. I guess IYO it won't. No problem with that. In such circumstances Rudisha, Eaton and Merritt would all be a worthy winner of AOY.

I agree. My comments were not meant to suggest that the choice is at all clear.

[dbirds]

Given comments on wAOY thread does it hurt Eaton that he was 3rd in LJ at Walnut?

Was he now? That is enough for me. DR is the Man!

I am not sure if you're being facetious or not.

One way or the other, a very deserving athlete is going to come in second here.

Very serious. In fact Eaton should run a DL 1500 to prove how tough he is....

But seriously, DR is the man. That Oly 800 is one for the ages.

And Eaton's 9039 WR in the rain is not??

So, if Rudisha had run a 400 and finished 4th then Eaton would be ahead??

Finally, Eaton also has a heptathlon WR to his credit. Sure, it's not the same as a deca but it's a legit event and he won it and broke a WR. The fact that the event favors him is not a knock on the event - it's a compliment to him. Did Rudisha or Merritt break an indoor WR this year? All 3 are awesome (Bolt too) but Eaton should win. He could not have done more this year!

[gh]

.... but Eaton should win. He could not have done more this year!

Well, actually he could. Skipping Götzis so close to the OT was the right choice. If he were to show up at Talence in a couple of weeks and win with a mid-8000s score, I suspect he'd become a pretty clear choice for a lot of people.

I'm still leaning towards him even with only the pair of meets. (and bringing up the indoor heptathlon, at least in terms of T&FN's AOY award, is a waste of time. The mark will not be on his cv and the voting instructions will contain usual boilerplate regards the ignoring of such events)

[tm71]

i think it has been made clear that the indoor heptathlon, indoor 800 and indoor 60 hurdles do not count in considering the AOY. Rudisha had some great sequence of marks in addition to his WR at the olympics. However, Eaton has practically been perfect winning the OT by almost 700 points over the world champion and breaking the 11 yr old WR, then winning the OG by 200 points over the defending world champion and the best the world had to offer. Both of his scores were in the top 8 performances ever, so the only thing Eaton did not do was break his WR from the trials at the olympics. Or post another big score in a meaningless early season meet. The comment that he would lose to mediocre club level atheltes in most of the event is totally ignorant. His 8.23 long jump at the trials would have put him on the us team and would have given him silver in london (had he repeated it). Even his long jump mark in london would have been good enough to give him three more jumps in the final.

[j-a-m]

I'm still leaning towards him even with only the pair of meets.

How about the following argument in favor of Eaton: He's won convincingly not only in good conditions, but also in the rain. When Rudisha ran in the rain, he didn't win, indicating he's not equally great under adverse conditions.

[tm71]

I'm still leaning towards him even with only the pair of meets.

How about the following argument in favor of Eaton: He's won convincingly not only in good conditions, but also in the rain. When Rudisha ran in the rain, he didn't win, indicating he's not equally great under adverse conditions.

to add to this, some of the events eaton competes in can severely be affected by the rain (such as high jump, hurdles, discus, pole vault).

[mump boy]

i think it has been made clear that the indoor heptathlon, indoor 800 and indoor 60 hurdles do not count in considering the AOY. Rudisha had some great sequence of marks in addition to his WR at the olympics. However, Eaton has practically been perfect winning the OT by almost 700 points over the world champion and breaking the 11 yr old WR, then winning the OG by 200 points over the defending world champion and the best the world had to offer. Both of his scores were in the top 8 performances ever, so the only thing Eaton did not do was break his WR from the trials at the olympics. Or post another big score in a meaningless early season meet. The comment that he would lose to mediocre club level atheltes in most of the event is totally ignorant. His 8.23 long jump at the trials would have put him on the us team and would have given him silver in london (had he repeated it). Even his long jump mark in london would have been good enough to give him three more jumps in the final.

WHo cares that he beat 'the defending world champion' it's totally irrelevant. Harting, Rudisha, Bolt, Farah either are the world champ or beat him as well.

[toyracer]

and bringing up the indoor heptathlon, at least in terms of T&FN's AOY award, is a waste of time. The mark will not be on his cv and the voting instructions will contain usual boilerplate regards the ignoring of such events

gh, I honestly don't know hence I ask; why?

[26mi235]

To me also, the multi events are ones that cannot be competed very often. Eaton showing up and scoring 8500 [does anyone here really think that an 8500 Deca is anywhere close to a 6600 Hept; the one has been done once, the other possibly 100 times] at Talence is worth a lot less than beating the WR in the closest thing to a decathlon you can imagine. I can hardly think of a competition that would be more of an anticlimax than another decathlon. He may have one the OT with the largest margin ever, and did it by defeating the defending WC and the defending OC.

Here, we are not talking about the event top performer, but the AOY, and setting a WR in an event competed at the WIC, and in fact doing it at the WIC, seems particularly relevant rather than something to be absolutely ignored.

[mump boy]

I don't get why multi eveners are seemingly getting a free pass from competing ?

As GH said there are other opportunities for AE to compete (and win large prize money). Gotzis was a month before trials, Multistar a month before that and Decastar a Month after London, but he has seemly chosen not to. Why is anyone who has achieved all they need to this year still competing ? Why didn't everyone just go home after London ?

Obviously i don't expect them to compete week in week out like other events but if they don't even take part in those that are available to them, then i can't compare them fairly to athletes who have competed 5 times as much and may have 1 loss. If we think Eatons achievements this year are superior to everyone else's (there is of course an argument for this) that's fine but others shouldn't be marked down for losing when competing a lot more frequently

[gibson]

there should be no penalty to rudisha what so ever for losing at seasons end in less than great conditions (for him).

say tiger woods wins 6 tournaments by 5 or 10 strokes and then finishes second by one in the last event of the season in the rain.....

say it was bolt and he blew away the competition by the equivalent rushida did this year (1-2 seconds) = 0.2 seconds in the 100. then loses in the rain for the first time by 0.01 to a guy he squashed all year???

you get the picture.

[DecFan]

Surely we can all agree on two points:

1) A loss for someone who competes only 2x in a year is more important than a loss for someone who competes many more times. Had Eaton lost either of his decathlon competitions this year, he would not be in consideration at all for AOY, regardless of the greatness of his other performance.

2) A loss is worse than a win, or not competing. Duh. Rudisha's record is unquestionably blemished by losing to Aman. Certainly an argument can be made that his season still merits AOY, but a loss is still a loss.

[DecFan]

Here are some statistics for the extent to which Rudisha's and Eaton's WRs are superior to past performances in their events:

WR superiority to 2nd best performer ever:
Rudisha: 0.20%
Eaton: 0.14%

WR superiority to average of next 5 best performers ever:
Rudisha 0.80%
Eaton 1.36%

WR superiority to average of next 10 best performers ever:
Rudisha 1.15%
Eaton 2.02%

WR superiority to average of next 5 best PERFORMANCES ever:
Rudisha 0.59%
Eaton 1.07%
(Note: Performances by someone other than Rudisha/Eaton)

WR superiority to average of next 10 best Performances ever:
Rudisha 0.86%
Eaton 1.60%

# of next 10 best performers beaten this year:
Rudisha: 5 (#4 Amos, #6 Kaki, #9 Borzakovsky, #10 Kitum, #11 Aman)
Eaton: 3 (#2 Sebrle, #7 Clay, #10 Hardee)

# of top 10 performances all time Rudisha/Eaton have in 2012, excluding their previous years' results
Rudisha 3 (#1, #4, #8)
Eaton 2 (#1, #8)

[marknhj]

Duh. Rudisha's record is unquestionably blemished by losing to Aman. Certainly an argument can be made that his season still merits AOY, but a loss is still a loss.

What nonsense. It isn't a blemish on his outstanding season at all.

Anyone who has a clue about the real world of elite track and field takes most post-Olympic results that are below expectations with a very large pinch of salt. In fact, it I cared one cent about AOY (guess what, I don't care for any subjective rankings of athletes), I'd vote for all post-Games results to be barred from consideration.

[DecFan]

Duh. Rudisha's record is unquestionably blemished by losing to Aman. Certainly an argument can be made that his season still merits AOY, but a loss is still a loss.

What nonsense. It isn't a blemish on his outstanding season at all.

Anyone who has a clue about the real world of elite track and field takes most post-Olympic results that are below expectations with a very large pinch of salt. In fact, it I cared one cent about AOY (guess what, I don't care for any subjective rankings of athletes), I'd vote for all post-Games results to be barred from consideration.

What nonsense. And how contrary to TaFNews' system over all these decades of taking head to head results seriously.

There's no question that a late season win/loss is less important than a mid-season win/loss; I buy the "very large pinch of salt" argument. But to say late season results are of absolutely no importance in judging the quality of an entire season of work? So if Eaton were to show up at Talence and win in 8700+, that should have no impact on AOY voting? Or flip the results of Zurich around: If Rudisha had won that race in low 1:41, that should have no impact on AOY voting? What nonsense.

[kuha]

Got to agree that the WHOLE season does have importance. One can weight the Olympics appropriately, but it cannot be the only meet that matters.

[j-a-m]

Great athletes compete to win; not so great athletes compete not to lose.

So shouldn't voters base their considerations mostly on wins, and less on losses?

[j-a-m]

And how about this: The real value of wins versus losses is in the predictive value, i.e. if the athlete were to compete next week against the best in the world, how likely is he or she to win?

Eaton has dominated the competiton both times, and both in sunshine and rain. So while two competitions is not much, it is in this case enough in terms of predictive value.

[marknhj]

Got to agree that the WHOLE season does have importance. One can weight the Olympics appropriately, but it cannot be the only meet that matters.

To the athletes it is.

As I said, a post-Olympic loss in an Olympic year should never be held against an outstanding athlete who has produced an incredible result in an Olympic Final. Especially when you are comparing an out-of-this-world individual event performance with multi-event performances.

What multi-event athletes achieve is fantastic, fabulous, and occasionally incredible, but they are stringing together a series of mostly average or below average marks in the context of world class performance. To me it's simply not the same as running a sub-1:41 800m which almost requires a word beyond "excellence".

[mump boy]

Surely we can all agree on two points:

1) A loss for someone who competes only 2x in a year is more important than a loss for someone who competes many more times. Had Eaton lost either of his decathlon competitions this year, he would not be in consideration at all for AOY, regardless of the greatness of his other performance.

2) A loss is worse than a win, or not competing. Duh. Rudisha's record is unquestionably blemished by losing to Aman. Certainly an argument can be made that his season still merits AOY, but a loss is still a loss.

I don't think a loss is worse than not competing, in fact i think coming 2nd is better than not taking part

[Conor Dary]

I don't think a loss is worse than not competing, in fact i think coming 2nd is better than not taking part

Just like Tennyson's

Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

[Tuariki]

Got to agree that the WHOLE season does have importance. One can weight the Olympics appropriately, but it cannot be the only meet that matters.

To the athletes it is.

As I said, a post-Olympic loss in an Olympic year should never be held against an outstanding athlete who has produced an incredible result in an Olympic Final. Especially when you are comparing an out-of-this-world individual event performance with multi-event performances.

What multi-event athletes achieve is fantastic, fabulous, and occasionally incredible, but they are stringing together a series of mostly average or below average marks in the context of world class performance. To me it's simply not the same as running a sub-1:41 800m which almost requires a word beyond "excellence".

I definitely agree with paragraphs 1 and 3. In regards to paragraph 2 I don't think you can discount post Olympic performances totally but as in the case of Rudisha you have to look at the context of the whole season; and in his case I would not hold his last loss against him at all in comparing him to Eaton.