Do they do that so they have absolute control on discretionary selections?
It isn’t fair to athletes but I can understand why they do it. If you haven’t got strong podium athletes you need to look at the relay to get that medal that will increase funding for the next cycle.
Domestiques should be banned in my opinion. It isn’t in the spirit of the Olympics or fair sport. If you can’t win a medal without a domestique you don’t deserve a medal.
There were definitely appeals for Paris that weren’t made public. The gap between selection dates and announcement dates give them away. From the late announcements for Paris it was clear who had appeals.
I think federations want control, because I think ITU is in the unique position that the variables (course profile + race roster) has the biggest impact on the race result. Swimming and running it’s literally who’s the “fastest” (and generally less variables impact that like can happen within triathlon…course profile in ITU is the biggest impact on how a race will unfold), but in triathlon with so many variables it’s not just the fastest. Having a GB only event would likely “skew” the results of what would actually happen in an WTCS level race with federation limits, etc. So then the next best option is to use a wtcs event as your “trials”, which is what most federations do now with the test event. I guess they could technically just use that as a 1 qualification only, results are what the results are. It would probaly imo be best to do a mid spring “qualification” race and you’d still have time to prep for Olympics (that’s what most other sports do; marathon is done for US in winter time for a summer olympics).
I don’t want to go so far as say domesitques should be out. Imo if I’m picking Seth Rider for the MTR, I would have 100% told Seth to swim/ride for Pearson and then if he wants to DNF or jog it home, do that. So I wouldn’t want to completely eliminate the role, especially with the MTR as part of the conversastion piece.
I dont understand the appeal part of this, just to be clear Coldwell 100% deserved to be at the Olympics, she was top 10 in the world athlete (but she’s British!) Had this debate after Tokyo, so don’t want to go down that road again.
But I agree with Waughs selection, so if the pick is discretionary there shouldn’t be any appeal, thats it, you’ve not been picked/selected.
Ill defend Brit Tris selections, I dont think they’ve got anything wrong in the past, we’ve always had 4 top 10 women going for three places prety much since before Rio.
I think generally the appeals are done to make sure the criteria was followed. Which is why it’s probaly generally really hard to overturn that because as I noted with USAT- they have no “final criteria” to point, it’s much more “generic” to then basically allow the selectors to hate to say it- select who they want.
Now how Sophie appealed, and actually won and still lost again, that’s interesting. I’m also too lazy or don’t care to look it up so maybe GB had more of a “final criteria” process, but it’s been my experience they won’t write it that way so not to corner themselves. They’ll generally have very specific AQ processes, and the discretion will be much more “generalized” (see USAT’s for example). Again with the MTR now attached to the individual it’s going to be very hard to make specific “final criteria” when each of those races has very specific different racing needs/demands. So do you make the final criteria for the individual or MTR?
It was discretionary but they had a policy for the discretion and they didn’t follow the criteria which is why Coldwell won her appeal.
I think they were both affected. Waugh was at the airport about to board a plane to pick up her Olympic kit when she received a call saying Sophie’s appeal had been successful. She had to go back up to altitude (think it was Font Romeu).
One of the wildest stories of federation drama was before London Olympics. USAT had a stud junior turned elite Lukas Verzcbicas who had I think won juniors or podiumed a few times. He was absolute stud, went to Oregon track, but quit middle of season to focus on ITU. For London, San Diego WTCS race was going to be the final USAT qualifier. It was also imo the most boring / easy course WTCS has ever had. It was destined to be 50 person T2 it was just flat, non tech and was just complete meh.
Everyone knew Verbicas was trying to make the team if he raced, but he didn’t have enough points to get on the start, so either someone was going to get subbed out and if so he was going to make the team with his run pedigree. Several top Americans prior to the start list sent letters to the federation that they would seek legal action if their spot was the one that was subbed out to sub him in. Crazy part, everyone in the top 5 all was wondering “who” is going to be subbed out for Verbzicas all that spring, it was wild. They made the decision not to sub him in, and then of course 18 months later he gets in that near death bike crash in Colorado Springs and his career was over before it really started.
Never can not be drama in itu.
That San Diego race. was also famous for I think Kris Gemmel (I think it was him) on the swim start basically ran 50m past everyone else who was swimming as it was so shallow on the edge of the swim that he got a comically massive lead. I think that event led to some updated swim rules in the rulebook to make sure athletes swam the swim portions of the swim.
I believe (and I do trust the person who told me) that the re-selection was so late that it wasn’t possible to have another appeal. I would imagine in that scenario it basically becomes a nomination.
I was told that there was a delay between receiving the appeal and the re-selection. Read into that what you want.
I havent heard about him in almost 10 years the last time I remember he tried like a “comeback” at non-draft but sorta lasted only a few races. That wreck probaly should have killed him, so to just be able to live a normal life is a blessing.
well and the fed that had the clearest selection won the team gold …
top 8 in selection races and the first 3 that got it ,got the slot.
if more places are available the highest in the ranking got it
and you had to be top 30 in the ranking to get a slot, even if you had a direct quali slot you still had to be top 30
You were not allowed to game it and f.ck your teammates.
No surprises in the women with most big names there; strong Germans and French. Only 41 listed.
In the men Wilde and Yee both there, and Pearson.
NB Sprint distance (Sunday 31st 1445)
I note Wilde and Pearson listed to race T100 (Saturday 30th 0705).
iam pretty sure world tri rules do not allow to race an oly distance race and then race within 24 hours.
ups I see its sprint distance and the time gap might be big enough
I just saw GJ had foot surgery to heal Haglund’s deformity issues that came up in Yoko and I assume will be out for the rest of the season(?). It feels like she’s visited the hospital a bunch of times this year through various crashes or injuries.
Didn’t she have surgery for Haglunds deformity when she switched to running as well? Strange to have it a second time unless it is on the other foot. Either way can’t see her racing this year.
It should be noted that GB federation with the biggest selection drama and likely among the hardest AQ pathway, has also been the only nation to produce medal winners in every race since the MTR was added (Tokyo + Paris).
They have arguable the toughest AQ process, 2 of 5 AQ’d.
Totally agree with you but France had a very hard AQ policy this time round. They just didn’t have the drama as the 3 women were strong but no one besides them.
I am not sure Lombardi was an AQ (but totally deserved her slot). At least one of the men wasn’t an AQ because Luis was hoping to get one slot.
I wasn’t really meaning to debate whether AQ’s are hard/medium/easy, I think it was more that the reality is even Germany had “discretion” in their qualification process (if it went to that). No federation simply says “Top 3 at X race and that’s it”; it’s always disclaimers, that each federation puts on the result that then are either a hard AQ (top 3 type of finish), medium level (top 8 like Germany/US has) and then just “top finisher”.
What was interesting was how federations handled Tokyo when covid took many race opportunities away, I think I recall GER basically doing an internal super sprint scrimmage with only the eligible GER athletes racing, to decide who would make the team.