The Olympic Trials and Possible Improvements

[26mi235]

I still do not like it.

It requires some combination of a committee selection the athletes. With as little of play as there is we have seen people in charge exercise it in ways that have displeased a number of fans.

To the extent it uses a performance list to get its top-8, there will be massive venue shopping which aids the rich athlete over the up-and-coming one. If it looks like it is a mountain too high then a lot of people will not bother to pursue the sport as a profession.

What if an athlete clears 5.80 at a secondary meet. How do you know it is completely legit without homer assistance. How do you deny it as well. How much are you going to wind and altitude adjust the marks?

The law dudes might like this because it is ripe for litigation.

How do you seed those semis. Take the 200, the athletes that ran the real heats deserve the lane draws that come with it. That will not be allowed, so what we will get is that the semis are where the random lane draws occur. You could well knock out your favorite for the 200 by having them in Lane 1 in a heat with a lot of fast athletes.

If I can come up with this many issues in three minutes, I am sure that there are others. I would be interested in what gh has to say.

[bushop]

But if we use the Canadian model, we can still have that big-time event without wearing out the stars.

How is the current Canadian model different than the US American model?

[26mi235]

The Canadian situation is fundamentally different than the US: Population is one tenth and in almost all events anyone in the top three is more likely to be constrained by the A" standard than by not being top-3 (women's hurdles notwithstanding and they might have had thee in the men's 10,000 if Birue's NR was set in a later interval). Of course, the Canucks have been known to throw additional roadblocks in the way. [That way there are more travel funds for the 'suits'. ]

[Conor Dary]

I still do not like it.

It requires some combination of a committee selection the athletes. With as little of play as there is we have seen people in charge exercise it in ways that have displeased a number of fans.

To the extent it uses a performance list to get its top-8, there will be massive venue shopping which aids the rich athlete over the up-and-coming one. If it looks like it is a mountain too high then a lot of people will not bother to pursue the sport as a profession.

What if an athlete clears 5.80 at a secondary meet. How do you know it is completely legit without homer assistance. How do you deny it as well. How much are you going to wind and altitude adjust the marks?

The law dudes might like this because it is ripe for litigation.

How do you seed those semis. Take the 200, the athletes that ran the real heats deserve the lane draws that come with it. That will not be allowed, so what we will get is that the semis are where the random lane draws occur. You could well knock out your favorite for the 200 by having them in Lane 1 in a heat with a lot of fast athletes.

If I can come up with this many issues in three minutes, I am sure that there are others. I would be interested in what gh has to say.

Actually gh has already had his input with his recent editorial that the way to go is with a 6 day Trials spread over 2 weekends. While not ideal, certainly better than what is the present situation.

[26mi235]

I meant on the notion of giving some 'selected' subset a big advantage into the last round(s).

[polevaultpower]

At the end of the day, it's about getting medals at the Olympics. Athletes who are chasing qualifying marks are pretty much never in contention to win a medal.

[18.99s]

At the end of the day, it's about getting medals at the Olympics. Athletes who are chasing qualifying marks are pretty much never in contention to win a medal.

Exactly.

And this is not about limiting the trials to 8 per event, it's only about giving 8 or so a bye past the early round(s). Those who couldn't compete often enough to get a top-8 time (or whatever criteria for a bye) would still have the opportunity to qualify for the trials via the usual top 32 or whatever number is allowed for their event. They'll just have to go through all the rounds like everybody does today -- that's not any major tragedy or injustice.

[j-a-m]

They'll just have to go through all the rounds like everybody does today.

Wouldn't they have to go through one more round than with the current system? They'd basically have to make it through rounds to the final, but then the final turns out to be just the semifinal because eight more get added?

[18.99s]

They'll just have to go through all the rounds like everybody does today.

Wouldn't they have to go through one more round than with the current system? They'd basically have to make it through rounds to the final, but then the final turns out to be just the semifinal because eight more get added?

No. If an event normally has 3 rounds, put the "top 8" straight into the semifinals and all the rest fight for the remaining spots in the semi, same 3 rounds overall.

Or if it's something with 2 rounds like the 5000, advance the top 8 directly to the final, and then everybody else fights for the remaining spots in the final.

[26mi235]

Tell me how you seed the semis, please (I can think of some rules but each has some issues). As an exercise, go back to the last trials and see how your mechanism works in ALL events. Note that the protocol for the OGs would have a random draw for the semis. This implies that in the 200 and 400 that some of the top stars could end up in lane 1 and refer to gh's comments about this being the lane of death. If it creates some problems in events that you have not focused on I think it will likely have trouble being something that would even reach the discussion stage. Remember, there are a lot events overall.

One major problem I see is that you are recommending that we have a first weekend sequence that is of little interest to the media or the fans. Then, you hand a big competitive advantage to the 'chosen eight'.

[18.99s]

Tell me how you seed the semis, please (I can think of some rules but each has some issues). As an exercise, go back to the last trials and see how your mechanism works in ALL events.

8 is probably too many ... I don't think there's any event with 8 medal contenders, and most events don't have 8 capable of making the OG final. Make it 4 instead -- say the medalists from the prior year's WC (if any), plus however many of the next fastest to bring the total to 4.

For lane seeding based on performance, those who use a bye should get what are deemed to be the worst lanes (1 and 8?). If they want a better lane, they can opt to run all the rounds.

Note that the protocol for the OGs would have a random draw for the semis. This implies that in the 200 and 400 that some of the top stars could end up in lane 1 and refer to gh's comments about this being the lane of death.

If random draws is to be the rule for semis (which is stupid), it should be random for everybody including whoever uses a bye.

[DecFan]

8 is probably too many ... I don't think there's any event with 8 medal contenders, and most events don't have 8 capable of making the OG final. Make it 4 instead -- say the medalists from the prior year's WC (if any), plus however many of the next fastest to bring the total to 4.

For lane seeding based on performance, those who use a bye should get what are deemed to be the worst lanes (1 and 8?). If they want a better lane, they can opt to run all the rounds.

With these adjustments, I like the idea. Four is plenty - and if lanes are really important to them, they have the option to run through the rounds. In that case, they would be no worse off than they are at present.