ARE WE COMPLETELY MIFFED YET?

July 7, 2008

Well is anybody completely miffed, yet?

I hear a collective yawn from the general populace. Yes this is how we create apathy towards track and field in Canada, we let desk dwellers prairie dog in their cubicles entertaining each other with poor decisions.

Canada will be represented at the Olympics in track by Gary Reed and Achraf Tadilli in the 800m. Taylor Milne and Kevin Sullilvan in the 1500m and Megan Metcalfe in the 5000m, that’s it!

Congratulations to the above named individuals, who are truly great athletes and representatives of our country, may they achieve career bests.

But what about the other athletes across the country left, watching from the safety of thier own living rooms?

Nothing. With standards and deadlines out of reach; they will merely be spectators.

The Olympic Creed is as follows:

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well." The creed and motto are meant to spur the athletes to embrace the Olympic spirit and perform to the best of their abilities.

The Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) and Athletics Canada (AC) made the standards for the Beijing Olympics tougher than the International Olympic Committee (IOC) standards.

To what purpose? This cannot be soley a budgetary issue, because what would the holders of the purse-strings do if the maximum number of athletes made the A+ standard in all events? Where would the money come from, the defense budget?

According to Chief High Performance Officer, Martin Goulet with Athletics Canada:

"The A+ standards were established following an analysis of recent World Championships and Olympic Games results as well as a statistical analysis from the past five years in order to reflect what represents - performance wise - a top 12 ranked athlete in the world".

Marathons contested at the Worlds, Commonwealth Games and Olympics typically do not provide the stellar performance times found in marathon races such as London, Berlin, Chicago, Fukuoka, Rotterdam and others and anything can and often does happen.

For the 2007 Worlds in Osaka a heat-wave baked the streets of Japan's second largest city. Marathoners raced in temperatures well over 30 degrees with a relative humidity of 70%. As a result 28 of 87 competitors did not finish the marathon and 2 did not start. 30 could not crack 2:30, 47 could not break 2:20, and the top 9 ran between 2:15 and 2:19. Kenyan, Luke Kibet only managed to run 1 second under 2:16.

Consider the average finish time in Athens Marathon in 2004 was 2:22. Paul Tergat who, at that time held the world standard for the marathon, with a time of 2:04:55 finished 10th in 2:14. Tergat ran a time that was not only outside of AC's A+ standard, but would also not qualify him for the competition in the first place. The 12th competitor, America's Alan Culpepper ran a time of 2:15:26.

2006 Manchester Commonwealth Games silver medalist Joshua Chelanga ran 2:12.45, outside of the A+ standard. Stuart Hall of England came in that magical 12th spot with a time of 2:19:53.

So where is Chief High Performance Officer, Goulet getting his top 12 stats from? Not from where he said he is getting them from.

Will making the standards more difficult encourage athletes to cheat by utilizing the effects of EPO and steroids? I hope not!

Will making the standards more difficult encourage athletes to retire early, run for another country, when they own more than one citizenship like Kathy Butler did and Diane Cummins can?

Most importantly will making the Olympics standards more difficult than the International standards discourage today’s youth from even bothering with track?

Would this completely piss anyone off? I don’t know, but I know it will just create greater apathy towards the sport of track in Canada and could possibly kill it off altogether.

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Christopher Kelsall is sponsored by Island Runner Footwear, located in Victoria, BC - Check out the store's site: Island Runner.

When visiting Victoria, rent from Chris' favorite RV place CampRV

Chris is a member of the Lydiard Foundation

Contact: chriskelsall@flocasts.org

Post a Comment

	Pchemisfun posted July 8 at 8:49am. I would agree there is no point to making the standards harder than they have to be. The time you need to run to got to the Olympics should just be the A standard and then whatever you need to run to get top 3 at your countires trials. I wouldn't say that this would kill track and field but it may encourage the tougher athletes to aim higher and take out the ones that aren't tough enough or think it is too hard. That might be what they were thinking but it probably will not work that way.
	T posted July 8 at 12:40am. The sport is slipping...can't get much worse.
	Anonymous Coward posted July 7 at 5:42pm. Further to this....What happens when (sorry: IF!) we do not capture the 2 medals and 6 top 6 places as the fearless prognosticators have predicted: the end of Canadian running as we know it? Ludicrous!
	Christopher Kelsall posted July 7 at 3:36pm. RobC, Yes I didn't see the additional names until after I wrote this. Also, I cheated a bit and copy pasted my own words from a previous editorial on standards - because to me, the point is the same. I obviously wasn't counting the people who were given extensions or field athletes. Just middle/long distance. And I agree with you about anyone with standards should go. International standards, send them all. AC and COC should find reasons to send athletes, rather than whatever they are doing now.
	RobC posted July 7 at 12:53pm. Canada just named 29 athletes to the Beijing Track and Field Team and gave another 6 an extended time frame to achieve standard. Of the 29 named, 18 are track athletes, and of the 6 given extensions, 5 are track athletes. It's obvious you missed the point of some of your own comments, at the Olympics where heat, humidity, tactics, pressure, and crazy priests come into play it takes a top runner to win. Even some top runners under perform, rarely if ever is it an athlete making a huge breakthrough. I personally think anyone with standard should be sent, expose them to Games and let them earn experience. I hope that our athletes and coaches step up and perform. Congratulations to those 29 named to the team and best of luck to the 6 chasing standards.