Shirvo slams Aths Australia

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21

I just heard Pat Johnson on the radio. Apparently he is off to the Court of Arbitration for Sport regarding being left off the squad for the olympics.

He spoke very well about being the fastest Aussie over the summer but all he wanted is the opportunity to be able to be included if he ran the time before the cut off date. I gathered that at present he has no chance to be included even if he ran the times.

When asked about qualifying on the relay team he danced around the issue and never answered it. I have heard there is no way that Cliff or Paul will include him in the relay at all!

Good luck to him anyway.

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After reading the article about Asafa (thank you for that kk1) and refreshing my memory with the following quote;

Or, more cynically - reading between the lines -certain bureaucrats at AA believe the current bunch of senior sprinters in Australia are either past it or beyond their (AA’s) control and they have taken the decision to terminate them by strangling them for funds and support of any kind.

  • one can freely conclude that if this is in fact what the bureaucrats at AA are doing, Matt and Co. can only be grateful for such favouritism as lack of any support or funds put them in the same sort of environment (or slightly better) as of the MVP and Asafa. They can run only better under such circumstances, would not you agree? :slight_smile:
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Just like you’ll do better after the gov’t cuts off your food, light, and power.
First, Gov’t gets involved and channels money in order to insert itself into the process, creating an expectation of support, not just for athletes, but also coaches and other support staff.
No one in their right mind in Jamaican sports expects anything from officialdom except nest feathering (as I recall, there is a quaint Aussie description for these folks… “Thieving Magpies”).
Then, when the promotional opportunity ends (2000 Olympics), Gov’t cuts the funds, first to those seen as a threat, next to all the rest. The original volunteer support base that created everything has walked away, leaving ruins behind.
The resultant disaster is explained away as bad attitudes by the surviving athletes suggesting the need for new ones.
One Canadian athlete called this the “Dixie Cup” mentality - use em and throw em away.

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If these guys were to run 10.1 or faster in the next three months would you feel that they are vindicated?

I’m not sure where you’re from or who you are but you continually demonstrate ignorance regarding the issues at hand. They involve numerous shades of grey and you keep reverting to absolutes.

Lets move away from these “has beens” these “mediocre” sprinters. AA has extended the same policy to a young sprint hurdler who last year actually met the qualifying standards for the WC’s but was turned down for selection. In the process of doing this he became the second fastest Australian ever and ran a time that was faster than several of the personal and seasons bests of semi-finalists at the world champs. He has now been told that he will have to “run several tenths of a second faster than the A qualifier” in order to qualify for the Olympics even though his seasons best for this year would have made semis if not finals at every world champs since 1999. This is a 21 year old we are talking about who is being told unless he can guarantee a top 8 finish at a level of competition he has not competed at before (through no fault of his own), he will not be given the chance to even try.

Without any sprinters at the olympics we will severely harm our sports coverage as Australia rarely shows rounds that do not contain our countrymen. Each year following a summer OG, numbers of registration at Little Athletics swells some of which are retained in subsequent seasons. This will not occur without the exposure we gain from games and literacy in the sport will become poorer and poorer. Is this what you would like to see happen?

These are the circumstances that guys like Matt are taking a stand against. If you had actually read what they have to say rather than making you mind up upon reading the headlines you may have realized this.

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AA counts on people being unable to wade through their bluster.
Creating tough standards is bullshit if you don’t have the hi-level program to back it up!
The first ones who are NOT qualified for any trips abroad are the bureaucrats running this dog-and-pony show!
Count on it, though. They will not be missing any free trips or Embassy piss-ups.

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Oh, I did not know that all of us have to think alike.

For the record, I dislike those bureaucrats as much as most of us here BUT how come that the selected athletes do not fight or stand up for “the right” thing? It seems to be some strange case that those who are about to miss out due to their poor performances realise that they have Robin Hood’s blood in their veins so they feel the urge to fight for the justice and against big bad fat and old bureaucrats who only care for their annual income and who in fact hate athletics as sport? Damn!

Instead fighting meaningless civil suits at various tribunals all they need to do is - run fast. Can they actually do it?

Talk about yet another case in this discussion or even throwing in the little athletics, oh lord, let my people go… :slight_smile:

And yes, it is only my opinion.

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Now we’re getting down to it! It’s Creationism against Evolution (apparently the Devil’s work).
No one can convince the true believer that man didn’t co-exist with dinosaurs, so lets all sit back and pray for fast times. (might have to wait till the next world however)

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Anonymous Poster writes…

Instead fighting meaningless civil suits at various tribunals all they need to do is - run fast. Can they actually do it?

Dazed I really like to know who this guy is? Anonymity can have it’s benefits.

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That’s crap, you set the time and if people meet it they go, end of story :mad:

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Now we’re getting down to it! It’s Creationism against Evolution (apparently the Devil’s work).
No one can convince the true believer that man didn’t co-exist with dinosaurs, so lets all sit back and pray for fast times. (might have to wait till the next world however)

Charlie,

I can proudly announce that I am an antitheist as much as I am an atheist. Never for one second in my life I have believed in the “creature” above with a long beard. The literature I read is written by the Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris) and many other prominent atheists.

I suggest that people should be more careful when reading on-line discussion forum replies as sometimes those can be cynical or ironic. Cheers.

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You know, while I have plenty of sympathy for everyone who missed initial selection for this Aussie Olympic team they have all known for at least five years that there would be an Olympics in Beijing in 2008. For those too young to be able to have pushed their development along in time for these Games, that’s life. Keep working for the next opportunity.

As I’ve read the pronouncements by the chairman of selectors published in this forum, no-one has been prevented from maintaining their campaign up to the stated Aussie Federation deadline of 23 June 08.

And it has been established practice that those who don’t qualify during the Aussie season will not be rewarded for failing to manage their bid to the required timetable.

It was ill-conceived by the chairman of selectors to have included in his comments/release that only a handful of additional athletes would be encouraged to keep trying up to June 23.

Whether those who come to the party late should be penalised is a dubious strategy by the national federation, but it does force certain athletes/coaches to get their act together and produce their performance on demand.

Producing performance on demand is what Championship athletics is about. It’s about doing your best on the big day.

Managing injuries is a huge part of managing performance and being able to deliver on the due date.

Now the federation’s other agenda has been one of developing funding self-sufficiency. The Aussie Federation have decided, rightly or otherwise, their best shot of securing their financial independence is by creating a viable entertaining grand prix circuit domestically to generate gate takings, attract media coverage which will appeal to sponsors.

The Aussie federation have lost their naming rights sponsor, a big Telco, and are heavily beholden to the Aussie federal government for financial support to keep the doors open.

Some people on this forum have attacked the sport’s need for a local series of meets which are up to the level of attracting crowds, media and sponsors. They have attacked the federation’s decision to bring in some major players like Asafa Powell and Jeremy Wariner. BUt in the absence of meaningful head-to-head contests between top Australians of a world class standard, crowds and media and sponsors will continue to ignore the sport.

You may argue that the domestic circuit is not the best way to go, but how else can the federation both provide opportunities to compete in optimal conditions for athletes and put something in the shop window appealing enough for anyone to want to buy it.

Financial independence is crucial. He who pays the piper calls the tune. If you are beholden to the government for funding life-support, comes the day when the fuckwits of the day in political office decide to boycott the Olympics then the athletics federation will have little choice other than to fall in line with a boycott. And then we would all have real grounds for complaint.

As for the argument that the Aussie domestic season is too early in Jan-March and adversely effects Aussie chances of success at the Olympics in August, the best athletes don’t seem to have had problems historically. Those like John Steffensen who want to run slowly during the Jan-March period have been able to do so and still get selected by working around the criteria as have all of the Aussie medallists going back at least to the late 1960s when I started taking an interest.

People like Peter Norman and Ralph Doubell, Raelene Boyle and Maureen Caird - all Mexico medallists - ran very well in March and even better in Mexico in 1968. Even well before them you saw athletes like John Landy and Ron Clarke set historically fast times (in Clarke’s case a world record in December at the Zatopek meet) and go on to run world records in the northern hemisphere season.

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While I agree with some parts, there are some issues:
Mexico City was in Oct so the spread of seasons worked out better than on many other occasions.
domestic meets may generate some funds but unless they create opportunity for the athletes like in Britain where big money was once available at home and with timing being right, it won’t do much. Just ends up being coercion. Scheme after scheme was tried in Canada but no one was ever produced from the domestic non-high school program. in fact, most top Canadians competed domestically either once- Nationals (conditions occasionally good)- or twice- Harry Jerome as well (conditions almost always horrid).

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There is always capacity to adjust the Aussie season, with Nationals of past years having been held as early as late-February and as late as early-April. So a bit of flextime there. If you take them back much earlier, your “promotable” athletes definitely won’t have enough time to get over the previous international season which customarily ends in early September with some lucrative meets in Asia.

But if you run the Aussie grand prix season much later than April, you get some pretty ordinary weather in the southern states and in Canberra where the Australian Institute of Sport is based (based for political rather than professional reasons). So then you run into time compression issues coming into the next northern hemisphere season.

And for those who advocate staging the Aussie nationals in June, as are the US titles usually, to run more readily into the Euro circuit there are other issues.

While it doesn’t snow in Melbourne or Sydney during winter (to some degree because they are so close to the ocean), you would probably have to stage all your meets in the top end of the country to get the real warmth for power eventers to be able to produce decent performances.

That means basically staging all your meets up there and the cost of shuttling athletes and coaches and officials up and back on however many occasions would constitute an appropriate lead-in series prior to a National selection meet would be prohibitively expensive.

The Aussies do not have an interscholastic sports program on anything like the scale of the NCAA. The Aussie system is based more on the British system, with clubs competing against each other but that system is in poor repair as registered numbers in the sport continue to dwindle to historic lows.

Therefore, since the interclub system really cannot produce the level of competition (in most events on most weekends in most cities) to produce Olympic qualifying performers, the Aussie Federation has been obliged to create this higher tier of competition which evolved into the domestic grand prix. It has its flaws for sure but it’s way superior to the current club system.

The corollary is that it is extremely expensive to set up such a domestic circuit moving it around various cities, bringing in athletes and often key officials to make it happen. While I understand the various State governments through their own State Institutes of Sport will fund their own high-level athletes to attend the domestic circuit, the national athletics federation also shares in covering some aspects of the costs.

Therefore you can see why the NF needs to make these domestic meets pay, if only to recoup costs and help fund so many teams to things like age group world championships, cross-country and road events, walks and then Commonwealth, Olympic and World champs - even given that the IAAF and various umbrella organisations such as the local Com Games Association and NOC contribute funds through training and competition support schemes.

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Well said kk1!

You know, while I have plenty of sympathy for everyone who missed initial selection for this Aussie Olympic team they have all known for at least five years that there would be an Olympics in Beijing in 2008. For those too young to be able to have pushed their development along in time for these Games, that’s life. Keep working for the next opportunity.

Absolutely.

Producing performance on demand is what Championship athletics is about. It’s about doing your best on the big day.

Agreed. Just like at the US Olympics Trials.

The Aussie Federation have decided, rightly or otherwise, their best shot of securing their financial independence is by creating a viable entertaining grand prix circuit domestically to generate gate takings, attract media coverage which will appeal to sponsors.

I have been supporting this idea for many years and as I tend to agree with Charlie’s comment (about UK and Canada) I also think that everything comes down to organisation and execution.

The Aussie federation have lost their naming rights sponsor, a big Telco, and are heavily beholden to the Aussie federal government for financial support to keep the doors open.

They do not have to go with the big names. With the right team AA could attract medium size players to chip in. They should use “Obama’s fundraising methods”. Present the cause to those that care but ask for smaller more numerous investments rather than a big one.

You may argue that the domestic circuit is not the best way to go, but how else can the federation both provide opportunities to compete in optimal conditions for athletes and put something in the shop window appealing enough for anyone to want to buy it.

Agreed.

As for the argument that the Aussie domestic season is too early in Jan-March and adversely effects Aussie chances of success at the Olympics in August, the best athletes don’t seem to have had problems historically. Those like John Steffensen who want to run slowly during the Jan-March period have been able to do so and still get selected by working around the criteria as have all of the Aussie medallists going back at least to the late 1960s when I started taking an interest.

That’s exactly what I am saying. If they can not for whatever reason - accept it, face it, embrace it, such is life. Be ready to run fast and without excuses like a true elite athlete.

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AA modified the selection criteria during Jan. They sent out a memo outlining that the A standard wasn’t suffice. The level of performance required for athletes to be in the top 16 in the world.

I looked at the events at which OZ were likely to make top 16 in the world based on the last 4 OL & WC. The coaches at AA have been using Excel and statistical probability to assist in what events they choose. Most the events with a high statistical chance were relays & walks. The men’s 100m had a 8% statistical chance of being in the top 16 position.

I thought to myself, “What a bunch of wankers!”. Athletes fates were in the hands of excel and statistical probability! Coaching via statistics - that’s taking things to another level of insanity!

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kk1 (your opinion would be appreciated)

Therefore, since the interclub system really cannot produce the level of competition (in most events on most weekends in most cities) to produce Olympic qualifying performers, the Aussie Federation has been obliged to create this higher tier of competition which evolved into the domestic grand prix. It has its flaws for sure but it’s way superior to the current club system.

Some bullet points;

  • In my opinion and in very basic terms, if the interclub system is modified and improved with the support of the corporate organisations it could work.

  • For starters, instead competing at various venues around, let’s say Sydney or Melbourne, allocate a venue where all the clubs would compete during the season.

  • Form a league with a limited number of athletics clubs with athletes that would meet the selection criteria with equivalent number of athletes representing each club.

  • One venue would attract spectators to one location where they would gather once a week during the season creating, in such way, a home ground for a devoted group of 3,000-5,000 people. This number, with the right media strategies, could grow over a period of time.

  • One venue would attract support of medium to large size businesses because of the number of supporters that would come around every week. Those businesses that put their hands up would sponsor a club or clubs of their preference .

  • Only the best athletes in each State League would represent their State Teams during 4-week finals period held in the four big cities (Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth). This limits moving the teams around the country to only 3-4 trips per season which is cost effective.

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I think you CAN move the meets back as early as Jan and get big performances. The rest of the world goes to the big Euro meets into Sept and they can perform in late Jan. More to the point, if you keep the meets going too late into March, you may run into problems getting ready for early summer.
In Canada, there was always the idea of being ‘fiscally responsible’ (read cheap) and every effort was made to save money by stiffing Canadians while spending money on people from outside. The only exception was indoors- and that’s where things went well until they decided to get cheap there as well and all the meets died. When Hamilton paid athletes well, they drew up to 16000 to an indoor arena- a sell out. Later, after Mark McKoy won the Olympics, Hamilton told him he should compete for next to nothing cause “he owed them” while paying thousands to washed up Brit distance runners (neither he nor any other of my athletes ever got a break from these people. In one case they kept out my local girl who won Oly relay silver who would have run for free to pay thousands for an American who my girl beat every time out that year)- Mark told them to piss off- he already had his charities- and now they get less than 50 people in the stands.
Britain in the mid 80s used TV revenues to get big draws and paid their top athletes, not only well, but more than anyone else.
They had huge tv revenues because the Heysel Stadium Soccer riots drove TV money track’s way. When it dried up, so did track.
If you can’t get the local meets going, you need to rely on meets in other countries and for that you need performances- and for that you need ideal conditions whether there are big crowds or not.
See the 10.00 from this weekend on this forum. Look how close the race is relatively- that means fantastic conditions. that guarantees invites to Eurpoe where the action is.

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Aus has no business modelling itself on America, which has trials rules based on limitless talent and the contribution of the NCAA’s 40,000 scholarships!!!
If you want big performances, provide big conditions.
How were your conditions this year? How many PBs were recorded in these meets overall? (not necessarily by any particular person but by enough people to show conditions were there if you were ready)
How were your nationals run? Was the starting up to snuff?
What was the time spread between average and best by the top performers? (The old rule of thumb was that a superb conditions 100m performance would be .2 sec faster than the athlete’s average seasonal result.)

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KK wrote

And it has been established practice that those who don’t qualify during the Aussie season will not be rewarded for failing to manage their bid to the required timetable…

Whether those who come to the party late should be penalised is a dubious strategy by the national federation, but it does force certain athletes/coaches to get their act together and produce their performance on demand.

Producing performance on demand is what Championship athletics is about. It’s about doing your best on the big day.

Interesting to see that in 1984 & 1988 National Champs Darren Clarkes name doesn’t appear. One set of rules than and other set of rules for todays athletes? Did DC have the luxury to bypass the national champs ? I am not having ago at you KK. I don’t why DC didn’t run, maybe he was injuried or selection criteria didn’t force him to. The point is, if DC had todays selection criteria maybe the road to the Olympics would of been much more difficult.

Saturday 31 March 1984
1 Bruce Frayne SA 45.96
2 Gary Minihan Vic 46.15
3 Rick Mitchell Vic 46.42
4 Peter Stubbs Vic 46.79
5 David Johnston NSW 46.99
6 Murray Gutry NZL 47.53
7 John Fleming Vic 47.70
8 Gerald Sheahan Vic 48.27

Saturday 26 March 1988
1 Miles Murphy NSW 44.71
2 Mohamed Al-Malky Oman 45.49
3 Rob Stone Vic 45.73
4 Mark Garner NSW 45.88
5 Robert Ballard NSW 46.73
6 John Paini WA 46.95
7 Alan Ozolins NSW 46.99
8 Peter Stubbs Vic 47.14

Under the current selection criteria, no one should of been named in the mens 400 for Beijing. They didn’t achieve the A standard in Brisbane, so based on the criteria the selectors have the right to exclude them.

The point of conjecture is the arbitrary use of the criteria. The mens 100 ,200, and sprint hurdlers seem to have a line put through them. Having a strict criteria is hard enough, but arbitrary enforcing the standards is just wrong.