The Insanity

[mattgianone]

I see this every year when there is an Olympic or World Track Championship. You look at the contenders in the heats of the mens and womens 100 meter lists and I swear there are about 50 or 60 names from countries I have never heard of. Most of the mens times dont get below 11 flat in the 100. What chance do they have? If someone runs a 10.2 100 meters against a 11.1 best who the bloody hell do you think is going to win? Why do these countries pay good money to fly these non athletes over and keep them in hotels for a week when they have no chance at winning even a quarterfinal bid? I can see a 4x100 team right now warming up from the Phillipenes hoping to break the national record of 46.5 which 90 % of american high schools can break. Its just pathetic.

 

[Twinsen9]

For experience ? For fun ? For sports ?

 

[jaxvid]

It's ridiculous that any government should pay one single dime for someone to play sports. No country should allocate tax monies so that a priveleged few can play some "games". It should all be privately financed and if it was then people that couldn't compete wouldn't be able to, but since it is essentially welfare for athletes you have all these people there just burning up someone else's money. For many of these poor countries they are probably there because the US State Dept. offers money for them to go to improve international relations or somesuch stupid ass reason.

 

[white is right]

I have no problem with weaker athletes competing. I would rather have a 11 flat Micronesian than a 9.7X drugged up athlete. The IAAF pays money to these countries and their athletics federations pay for these athletes. At this point because of drugs a 10.2 athlete could be considered a tourist athlete too. That's how bad the drug scene is in track and field.

 

[Soccer&track]

I think any country should compete that wants to. I don't like being told that because I'm white, my race is inferior at sprinting to another race and Im sure athletes from non white/non black countries feel the same way. If we sit here on this site and say that non white/non black athletes can't compete, then we are creating a caste system of our own. I myself am ok with seeing a 100 meter final someday with a few white guys a few black guys and a few brown guys. I joined this site because I'm sick of this American stereotype of white guys being fat, slow nerds with little ****s so I'm sure as hell not going to discourage anyone from competing, even if their national records seem pathetically slow. Not stepping on toes here, just my 2 cents lol.

 

[mastermulti]

If we wanted to be totally "sensible" you'd just lump in the top 16 times for the year (taking into account numbers of competitors allowed per country) and start at semis level. This would be a real showcase of the world's best to the majority who wouldn't bother watching a sprint event most of the time.
And we should remember it is a World Champs, not a so-called "games".
In other words, this is a comp about who is the very best and those who are good enough to at least be in the picture.



Then again, if we want to stick by the objectives and ideals of the OGs I'm happy to have the best from everywhere get to have a go. Sure, the cream will always rise to the top but there will be added interest from most nations who normally wouldn't have an object of interest. The thing here is...they are called "Games", not championships, and I think that's the key.
We lot would always watch but your average Joe wouldn't bother unless there was a way to spruik up national interest.


so to sum up..................only the cream to a world champs, a strict adherence to qualifying entry times and season ranking

 

[swampfox]

There's alot of sentiments here that I have had since I saw the heats schedule in the 100m men's. Number one the best don't always win. Thank God! Elsewise we would just play games on paper and declare a winner. There is a difference between being the best and being a champion. The best is always subjective, a champion is always a winner. It's the reason we compete. In years past I had complained that the Germans, or Italians, or Greeks or whoever didn't send their 10.1 or 10.2 100m guys because their was no reason for them to be tourists even thought they met the standards and yet those bottom slots were filled with guys some fellow from India or Vanuatu. It would have made the heats better to have guys who had a chance to produce something near their PB's and maybe steal some slots from some of the "A" list guys to go into the quarter final or maybe take something out of their legs for the following rounds bettering our Whites chances in what followed. No one is at their top form all the time, and if I can catch you when your down and I'm up, well I may not be the best, but I'm the winner. I admit there may be less world records in the finals at big events, but I have no problem with that I'm looking for a champion not trying to lift the bar on what the best personal performance is, save that for the one-off meets. Having said that the set-up for the mens 100 looks like they are trying to make it a one-off meet they put all the guys who couldn't meet standards in one pot and tried to let them knock each other off to allow the big men less room to screw-up, giving the top class only 3 rounds to run. Which in turn made for this huge 24 man semi-final which has lessens our chances to have White representation in the final whereas if we would have had a more traditional 32 man quarte and sixteen man semi we might have had 4 or 5 with atleast a chance to make it to the final. No it wouldn't be the 8 men that had the best PB's or SB's but it would have spread out the competition and the result would have given a better idea of a champion succeeding through trials. I brought this up on another thread, but take Kim Collins career. He is a World champion and has made numerous finals in the World's and Olympics. His personal best is 9.98, he had a bout a 12 or 15 month period where he produced several sub 10 times, this is when he was at his peak performance (according to times atleast) and this was a decade ago. He has made the most of his oppurtunities to perform and done well despite the fact that on paper he should have never been in the race for the championships. I think we have had opportunities to have representation for the fastest men in the world that we have let slip by because countries didn't want to send tourists. I think a good case in point would matic osovnikar in the 2007 worlds how many more like him have we had that didn't even show up to compete? Which lends itself to a larger question.