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 individuals, who are truly excellentt 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 their 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 military 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 on the heat-wave baked the roads of Japan's second largest city, marathoners raced in temperatures in excess of 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 the Athens Olympic 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 (who holds the national 800m record) can?

Most importantly will making the Olympic 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, time for a change.

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Contact Chris: chriskelsall@flocasts.org