gh wrote:The 5880 puts her about 64th on the yearly list. Would you consider somebody with an 11.26 in the 100 (also 64th) have that mean anything in voting for something as elevated as AOY?
IF that event is significantly different from the primary event, then yes, I'd like to consider it. And yes, that would apply IF Spotakova were to run 11.26 in addition to being the top JTer.
Being top 100 in the world in an entirely different event shows that someone is an overall great athlete, and it's called Athlete of the year after all.
Don't worry, though; should I ever get on the voting panel, I'd go with the official t&f news criteria ...
dbirds wrote:I agree with J-A-M. I think Spotakova's performance was impressive. How many other gold medalists could score nearly 6000pts in a hepathlon?
Sure it's great... but it has nothing to do with AOY. How could it?
To determine AOY, you need to compare competitors from various different events, and to do so you need criteria to compare them, whether those are implicit or explicit.
I believe overall athletic skills to be one of the better criteria to use here. And wrapping up one's season with a top 100 performance in the heptathlon demonstrates such overall athletic skills.
But it's about finding the best athlete in the world, not the best all-round athlete. And why not go for Ennis then, who's demonstrated she's world-class in two events and of a very good international standard in a few others?
The T&FN ballot will show only a single gold for Felix... her team stuff is irrelevant far as we're concerned. Counting that gives an unfair advantage (way unfair advantage) to those from large-population nations. And has nothing to do with individual achievement.
gh wrote:The T&FN ballot will show only a single gold for Felix... her team stuff is irrelevant far as we're concerned. Counting that gives an unfair advantage (way unfair advantage) to those from large-population nations. And has nothing to do with individual achievement.
Those from smaller countries have an "unfair" advantage in that they don't have to go through national trials to qualify for their individual events at WC and OG; so they can peak once as opposed to twice. So while it's much easier to win relay medals if you're from a larger country, that's somewhat mitigated because it's more difficult to medal in individual events.
Besides, are Bahamas and Jamaica really "large-population nations"?
dbirds wrote:I agree with J-A-M. I think Spotakova's performance was impressive. How many other gold medalists could score nearly 6000pts in a hepathlon?
I'd say just about ANYONE could who's tops in their event.....as long as that event is in the Hept....or some equivalent. Thus, I doubt a Tirinish Dibaba could do it, because there's no Hept event similar to a 10K or 5K!!
But sprinters, hurdlers, jumpers, throwers?? She'd get a HUGE point total (1100 or more??) from her key event. Thus she'd need "only 4800 or 4900 from the other 6 events.
An Olympic athlete is highly trained, and her athletic talent and shape and skills would allow her to get fair to decent point scores in those other events.
Imagine Britney Reese, Dawn Harper (or Lolo??), Kara Patterson, or Carmelita Jeter doing a Hept!!
The IAAF nominations point out what a great year this was for men compared to women. There are people who didn't make the men's final 3 who are better than the best of the women's candidates, methinks.
gh wrote:The IAAF nominations point out what a great year this was for men compared to women. There are people who didn't make the men's final 3 who are better than the best of the women's candidates, methinks.
I agree. In 2007 Felix was fourth in AOY, but her 2012 season was similar to 2007, yet she is in the top three.
Ennis is fabulous this year despite losing WIC title to dobynska,two times over 6900p which even kluft did not reach plus world top-class 7.87s 60mH and 12.54s 100mH,if she can win the AOY,it would be good for this season,as for Adams ,she is great and I support her to win AOY last year,but her oly performance did not good at all adding no PB this year,her chances is minor.If she want to be more competive in the titles,please toss the shot over 21.70m first because experts did not much in favor of throwers,thinking about 10 times over 22m in 1980 of slupianek, even in current times adams has more works to do in a single season.Not forget Felix,that she did not even ranked top3 in 2007 was quite surprise to me,in this season she performed fantastically but too few competions in her main events,so you know what I tend someone to win the trophy specifically,
Daisy wrote:I'd go for Ennis as the pressure for her was immense.
Is that a new judging criterion?
Does that mean in Olympic year the AOY should be the local host country favourite who comes through and wins gold? Should Farah then be men's AOY?
Maybe. All achievements do require context and the Face of the games pressure is unique and forever will be brought up with Ennis' Gold Medal achievement and as prehaps the great performance moment in T&F during the Olympic games. Farah didn't quite have that pressure but his double distance gold certainly deserves seriosu consideration.
Daisy wrote:I'd go for Ennis as the pressure for her was immense.
Is that a new judging criterion?
Does that mean in Olympic year the AOY should be the local host country favourite who comes through and wins gold? Should Farah then be men's AOY?
Maybe. All achievements do require context and the Face of the games pressure is unique and forever will be brought up with Ennis' Gold Medal achievement and as prehaps the great performance moment in T&F during the Olympic games. Farah didn't quite have that pressure but his double distance gold certainly deserves seriosu consideration.
On the other side of the coin, running in front of a loud crowd cheering for you can give you a huge boost. I was in the stadium when Farah got his second gold, and the volume of the cheering was something I had never experienced before....
Maybe they should be disqualified for the uplifting support they received!
That may be true...for Farah. But Ennis was talked up as the Track gold London must get to be a vintage Olympics. Since the World gold in 2009 Freeman comparisions were made, it basically was brought up in every interview Jess Ennis has had for 3 years and as it drew closer, giant billboards, advertising of all kinds, the giant picture draw in the fields to be seen by planes coming into Heathrow. That pressure is immense and worst of all singular, it's not spread among a team or other competitors, Ennis was to be the British moment of the games. You could see it in her face, Johnson-Thompson might have enjoyed it and been spured on, Ennis had to win no matter what. All after a year in 2011 where she showed she could be beaten and the competition was dangerous.
What seems to be missing here is that the last two years in particular, Farah has been at the forefront of a paradigm shift -- the European and American athletes can compete at the highest level successfully in the long distances. None of the other athletes has nearly that sea-change implicit in their accomplishments.
There was a sea-change in 2008 with Bolt but there was no comparable change in 2012. In fact, the most widely predicted WR at this Olympics was the 4x100 Men's Relay (even more than the 800). Nothing Ennis did results in any different assessment of the state of our sport. In fact, I do not think that there was much change due to any of them, with the exception of Rudisha when you combine 2011 with 2012, and similarly for Eaton. After the Olympics, the hurdle WR was so stunningly good that even though breaking it in the best hurdle season was not a big surprise, doing that much was (and now it is close to where something else has to be worked out).
26mi235 wrote:None of the other athletes has nearly that sea-change implicit in their accomplishments.
Because none of the other athletes compete in events where Europe and the USA have been so shit for so long (Only on the mens side by the way).
You shouldn't get extra credit just because historically your peers have been piss poor.
Call it what you want, it will likely have more impact on the sport than any of those other athletes. THAT is a big deal, whether you like it or not, and it seems that you do not really like it that much for some reason.
I cannot remember what your opinion of Ennis is, but since she is vastly behind the frontier, why were you ever excited about her.
mump boy wrote:So now were supposed to give extra credit to athletes if they make countries mainly populated by white people, feel better about themselves
mump boy wrote:So now were supposed to give extra credit to athletes if they make countries mainly populated by white people, feel better about themselves
gh wrote:Something about Eaton that I'm not sure anybody mentioned before: he's the USATF Indoor champ in the LJ, has two wins over Oly bronze medalist Will Claye and while T&FN doesn't rank beyond No. 10, I suspect he'd end up about No. 15 in the world in that event. Has 45.87, 13.34w and 8.23 marks outside of decathlons, so he has more than the two competitions that we see frequently cited.
aaronk wrote:Using your theory, wouldn't then the same apply to Jessica Ennis, since her 12.54 surely would rank her pretty high on the World list for 100H? Not to mention her 7.87 60H this year is the 3rd best indoors, and she has the 2nd best pent. score as well.
26mi235 Dieter Baumann won Olympic gold over 5000m in 1992 (shock horror a white man winning a long distance race! ) Craig Mottram won World bronze over 5000m in 2005 (another white man!) and there have been numerous Arab & Berber men (neither 'white' nor 'black'!) that have medalled over 5000m and 10000m, most notably a certain Hicham El Guerrouj over 5000m. So, it really isn't that significant IMHO, that a (black) Englishman or a (white) American medalled in London.
On the other hand, one could argue that, as the first woman to score over 6900 pts twice in the same season since 1988, Ennis's achievements were more significant historically. But, I guess that would be a foolish argument, as who cares what happens in the heptathlon?
Sarcasm aside, the argument about 'keeping the sport viable' could therefore be extended to the sprints, which are dominated by (black) American and Carribean athletes. What about the poor white sprinters?
Anyway, AOY....if it goes to Felix it will be a terribly unfair and biased result.
) Craig Mottram won World bronze over 5000m in 2005 (another white man!) and there have been numerous Arab & Berber men (neither 'white' nor 'black'!) that have medalled over 5000m and 10000m, most notably a certain Hicham El Guerrouj over 5000m. So, it really isn't that significant IMHO, that a (black) Englishman or a (white) American medalled in London.