The Olympic Trials and Possible Improvements

[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.