I do agree that 4 rounds for the people who end up making the final is too many. I wonder how well Asafa would have run with less rounds in Beijing?! I think the mindset of the people complaining is that the new system is showing favoritism. In Turner’s own words… “It’s pretty much hanging medals around people’s necks before they’ve started.”
I guess the big question is how is the ‘bye’ system going to work (or going to be implemented). In other words, within what performance time period is a given athlete going to get a ‘bye’ during a championship year?