Some joke

LacticAthlete

What do the following all have in common?

A Olympic silver medalist/World Champion
A World Indoor/European Champ
A European Junior Champion
4th Fastest Irish Indoor 800m runner of all time?



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They have all been booted off tracks in Ireland.

Only in Ireland would we not have the common sense to let our best athletes use our facilities when they need to, ah sure our club under 12 relay team is more important!

Country is a joke.

RacoonQueen

???

None of the above give you the divine right to go on to any track in the country. I doubt any track would say no if they were asked, being 'booted off' would suggest they went on to the track and started using it without asking if it was alright?

rom

There are athletes who have special permission to use a track at any time so yes they have a "devine right / (special permission)".

ecoli

rom wrote: »

There are athletes who have special permission to use a track at any time so yes they have a "devine right / (special permission)".

Yes athletes who have pre cleared it with the facilities. Remember not all tracks are owned by the AAI

notsofast

Ok, what happened?

Clearlier

PPP on the part of somebody when something like that happens.

gerard_65

LacticAthlete wrote: »

What do the following all have in common?

A Olympic silver medalist/World Champion
A World Indoor/European Champ
A European Junior Champion
4th Fastest Irish Indoor 800m runner of all time?


Country is a joke.

Big deal:rolleyes:

LacticAthlete

Which tracks are owned by the AAI?

Surely common sense should prevail and our top athletes be allowed to train at our national stadium and clubs should not be allowed exclusively book the track during what is clearly an extremely busy tuesday evening time and then proceed not to even use the lanes anyway!

RacoonQueen

LacticAthlete wrote: »

Which tracks are owned by the AAI?

Surely common sense should prevail and our top athletes be allowed to train at our national stadium and clubs should not be allowed exclusively book the track during what is clearly an extremely busy tuesday evening time and then proceed not to even use the lanes anyway!

So a club, who have paid to book the track, should just step aside and let someone else use their slot and mess up their plans for their session?

When did this happen to you anyway? If you were there doing a session and people came on and got in your way I bet you'd be less than impressed.

ultrapercy

LacticAthlete wrote: »

What do the following all have in common?

A Olympic silver medalist/World Champion
A World Indoor/European Champ
A European Junior Champion
4th Fastest Irish Indoor 800m runner of all time?



..............................................
...............................................
................................................


They have all been booted off tracks in Ireland.

Only in Ireland would we not have the common sense to let our best athletes use our facilities when they need to, ah sure our club under 12 relay team is more important!

Country is a joke.

A fly lands on singer R Kellys shoulder.He says "Can you sing me a song R?" R Kelly responds "I believe I can, fly" Now thats some joke!

RayCun

LacticAthlete wrote: »

Surely common sense should prevail and our top athletes be allowed to train at our national stadium and clubs should not be allowed exclusively book the track during what is clearly an extremely busy tuesday evening time and then proceed not to even use the lanes anyway!

Should the inside two lanes at Santry be permanently reserved for a particular set of athletes, and no one else is allowed use them?

What if more than one superstar wanted to us the track at the same time?:eek: We'll have to establish a national pecking order - this athlete is allowed set up hurdles on any track at any time but can be kicked off by that athlete who is allowed practice starting from blocks in any lane they like except if this other athlete feels like doing a few miles at marathon pace in lane 1...

rom

Common sense should prevail here but I have heard stories of such athletes being asked to leave by a guy training one or two 12 year olds how to be a goal keeper in the infield.

It's not an athletics thing it's an Irish thing. If I joined my local GAA, paid up my membership and ran around the outside of one of their pitches they would get really upset. We are simply not good at sharing

Clareman

Just saw this thread on the main page and it reminds me of a conversation between the local GAA club pitch committee and the senior team management, the senior team wanted to have access to the pitch whenever they wanted it and to be able to move people off it whenever suited, the pitch committee said that they could have precedence over another team if the 2 teams tried to book at the same time but otherwise it would be first come first served, the senior manager kicked up a stink saying "We're preparing for a Senior championship and won't even give us access to the pitch" to which he got the reply "There won't be a senior team in 5 years if we don't allow other use the facilities as well"

rom

Clareman wrote: »

Just saw this thread on the main page and it reminds me of a conversation between the local GAA club pitch committee and the senior team management, the senior team wanted to have access to the pitch whenever they wanted it and to be able to move people off it whenever suited, the pitch committee said that they could have precedence over another team if the 2 teams tried to book at the same time but otherwise it would be first come first served, the senior manager kicked up a stink saying "We're preparing for a Senior championship and won't even give us access to the pitch" to which he got the reply "There won't be a senior team in 5 years if we don't allow other use the facilities as well"

Good point but a team sport uses all of a pitch. An athlete uses a single lane. I don't think any athlete is asking for the track to be cleared as they are on it but perhaps use of lane one.

Clareman

rom wrote: »

Good point but a team sport uses all of a pitch. An athlete uses a single lane. I don't think any athlete is asking for the track to be cleared as they are on it but perhaps use of lane one.

There could be 4 teams on a pitch at the same time, a lot of training sessions for GAA teams will be split up into smaller drills, I know some coaches who will put down 4 cones in a 7 yard square (14 line to 21) and have 8 players (4 on 4) doing drills in there, might have 3 of those across the pitch.

I think it a euthopian society there would be dedicated facilities to allow high performance athletes access to what they need whenever you need it, but in a place with limited resources then some common ground will need to be found as well as some organisational cop on.

average_runner

rom wrote: »

Good point but a team sport uses all of a pitch. An athlete uses a single lane. I don't think any athlete is asking for the track to be cleared as they are on it but perhaps use of lane one.

Remember without the club you wont have future stars.

oldrunner

Tuesday evenings at Santry from 7 on sees 3 sets of male middle/ long distance runners (up to 50 people), using 3 lanes. One to 2 sets of female runners (up to 25 people). Junior middle / long distance athletes (up to 10 - running faster than many of the seniors). A few groups of sprinters and hurdlers occupy the outside lanes.
There's barely enough room for the club and lane allocation is strictly managed within the club.

rom

average_runner wrote: »

Remember without the club you wont have future stars.

I agree but there are 8 lanes on a track like. ok some clubs are big in Dublin but it's not the case everywhere.

Timmaay

Anyone I know who has been over training in the likes of Kenya have said all of the east Africans would love to have access to the facilities that we have for training, but they just get on with it and just run, without all this bitching and moaning. Lack of facilities doesn't seem to slow them down though! Just get on with it is my view, no athlete is bigger than their club/track etc.

average_runner

rom wrote: »

I agree but there are 8 lanes on a track like. ok some clubs are big in Dublin but it's not the case everywhere.

Agree, but the place in question is one of the busiest tracks. Would it kill the top athletes not to ring ahead and see? And if an issue maybe try another track?

This can all be avoided by proper planning from all sides


We couldnt use our track last night as the kids were having some big sports event on it, so we just went to the park.
We be in the park from now on as track to hard in the summer. There is always other options

walshb

Timmaay wrote: »

Anyone I know who has been over training in the likes of Kenya have said all of the east Africans would love to have access to the facilities that we have for training, but they just get on with it and just run, without all this bitching and moaning. Lack of facilities doesn't seem to slow them down though! Just get on with it is my view, no athlete is bigger than their club/track etc.

Yes, but middle distance/long distance isn't as track necessary as sprints/hurdles/200/400.

Oregano_State

Perfectly understandable for more athletes not to be allowed on if it's busy. People should know it's always busy on Tuesday evenings.

I had a particularly annoying experience one Monday recently where I wasn't allowed to train on the track because there was a soccer match being played on the infield.

I've no problem giving up use of our national athletics stadium to other runners, but for other sports? Gizza break, wudya!

YFlyer

Sure Mark English can always train on the track in Limerick when his down there again.

clear thinking

If you have a real complaint write a letter.

If you are having a whinge go on the internet.

I've used at least 5 tracks around dublin over the past few years and never had any problem getting track time.

Even if there is heavy track use you can usually find a decent club official who squeeze you into a lane. It usually requires a lack of an egomaniacal streak and some humility, or waiting 30 minutes for a lane to free up.

a_non_a_mouse

I've allowed athletes "piggy back" onto track times on a number of occassions and I've never had an issues and the "guest" athletes have always been respectful and worked around the athletes who were scheduled and supposed to be there.
if they came with a big ego, I would have had no problem telling them take a hike if they impacted scheduled training.

ecoli

Lads are probably being a bit harsh here with all the Ego talk remember the OP is not the one who had the issue they are just speaking on what they witnessed I don't think it is fair to make any assumptions on the basis of someone posting on the internet in relation to the matter

thirtyonefoot

Some details for those who don't know the story yet offer expert advice. Precedent set somewhat over the winter with this club whereby a small number of groups trained on their time. Decent club and very decent head coach, he always allows groups work in. However, committe of club ruled that these groups couldn't train anymore. No formal communication though just asking athletes to get off track mid session last week.

The club are well within their rights to say no, suppose its the way a couple of the 'muscle' went about it. To those saying plan better, when there was a precedent for training at that time with co-op from club then its safe to plan it's ok. The ego comments are funny. The write a letter, true, wasn't done but face to face communication and phonecalls have taken place since which is probably better than a letter. It's no big deal and means groups just have to change schedules, schedules prob in place since last September, probably planning too well, eh!

What it does highlight is the Health and Safety issues and how these are eroding the age old concept of track sharing. Also, groups who are clubless (to be fair most top training groups are) do struggle to get lane time at peak time. Another issue is that the group of Ireland's first ever professional track and field coach had his group turfed out. None of these are the clubs issue apart from their reputation as a friendly club being tarnished.

This is no biggy really, most athletes have been kicked off a track at some stage, its the response of some of the posters here who seem to think some bunch of prima donnas came swanning up and demanding use of a track, kicking the defenceless little childer to the kerb. In fairness, it wasn't really like that.

RacoonQueen

thirtyonefoot wrote: »

Some details for those who don't know the story yet offer expert advice. Precedent set somewhat over the winter with this club whereby a small number of groups trained on their time. Decent club and very decent head coach, he always allows groups work in. However, committe of club ruled that these groups couldn't train anymore. No formal communication though just asking athletes to get off track mid session last week.

The club are well within their rights to say no, suppose its the way a couple of the 'muscle' went about it. To those saying plan better, when there was a precedent for training at that time with co-op from club then its safe to plan it's ok. The ego comments are funny. The write a letter, true, wasn't done but face to face communication and phonecalls have taken place since which is probably better than a letter. It's no big deal and means groups just have to change schedules, schedules prob in place since last September, probably planning too well, eh!

What it does highlight is the Health and Safety issues and how these are eroding the age old concept of track sharing. Also, groups who are clubless (to be fair most top training groups are) do struggle to get lane time at peak time. Another issue is that the group of Ireland's first ever professional track and field coach had his group turfed out. None of these are the clubs issue apart from their reputation as a friendly club being tarnished.

This is no biggy really, most athletes have been kicked off a track at some stage, its the response of some of the posters here who seem to think some bunch of prima donnas came swanning up and demanding use of a track, kicking the defenceless little childer to the kerb. In fairness, it wasn't really like that.

How are people supposed to get all that from the OP? I asked what happened and was ignored...

Wile E. Coyote

thirtyonefoot wrote: »

Some details for those who don't know the story yet offer expert advice. Precedent set somewhat over the winter with this club whereby a small number of groups trained on their time. Decent club and very decent head coach, he always allows groups work in. However, committe of club ruled that these groups couldn't train anymore. No formal communication though just asking athletes to get off track mid session last week.

The club are well within their rights to say no, suppose its the way a couple of the 'muscle' went about it. To those saying plan better, when there was a precedent for training at that time with co-op from club then its safe to plan it's ok. The ego comments are funny. The write a letter, true, wasn't done but face to face communication and phonecalls have taken place since which is probably better than a letter. It's no big deal and means groups just have to change schedules, schedules prob in place since last September, probably planning too well, eh!

What it does highlight is the Health and Safety issues and how these are eroding the age old concept of track sharing. Also, groups who are clubless (to be fair most top training groups are) do struggle to get lane time at peak time. Another issue is that the group of Ireland's first ever professional track and field coach had his group turfed out. None of these are the clubs issue apart from their reputation as a friendly club being tarnished.

This is no biggy really, most athletes have been kicked off a track at some stage, its the response of some of the posters here who seem to think some bunch of prima donnas came swanning up and demanding use of a track, kicking the defenceless little childer to the kerb. In fairness, it wasn't really like that.

In fairness, there's no way anyone here would have gotten that from the OP.