GO'H National Champion

TheBazman

http://www.athleticsireland.ie/news/gary-ohanlon-is-irish-national-marathon-champion-2017

RuMan

What a shambles, ruined it for both athletes really. Thought Gary should have got it but not getting it on sun probably ruined it for him anyway.

ultrapercy

RuMan wrote: »

What a shambles, ruined it for both athletes really. Thought Gary should have got it but not getting it on sun probably ruined it for him anyway.

Might take a bit of the gloss off it but definitely doesnt ruin it. You can choose how you handle situations and if I was him Id choose to be proud and delighted.

podgec10

Fair play and well done to Gary.

Does that say 6 months continuous living in Ireland gets someone qualified to compete in the national marathon championship?

RuMan

podgec10 wrote: »

Fair play and well done to Gary.

Does that say 6 months continuous living in Ireland gets someone qualified to compete in the national marathon championship?

"Unbroken "

Anyway delighted for Gary

Murph_D

"unbroken six months residency in Ireland" is pretty ambiguous as you don't normally lose resident status easily (e.g. by just going on holidays). I suppose the AI have their own definition of what this actually means. :rolleyes:

walshb

FFS..could they not have sorted the rules before awarding the Kenyan the title...

ooter

How come Freddie wasn't eligible in 2015 but was on Sunday?
https://twitter.com/irishathletics/status/658603635128016897

Murph_D

ooter wrote: »

How come Freddie wasn't eligible in 2015 but was on Sunday?
https://twitter.com/irishathletics/status/658603635128016897

Because they changed the rule in 2016.

Van.Bosch

i assume the singlet issue was a non issue then?

ThisRegard

Murph_D wrote: »

Because they changed the rule in 2016.

Is it an Athletics Ireland rule or an IAAF one?

Murph_D

ThisRegard wrote: »

Is it an Athletics Ireland rule or an IAAF one?

Athletics Ireland rules on eligibility to be national title holder.

jrkb

Van.Bosch wrote: »

i assume the singlet issue was a non issue then?

Heard because its a a mass participation event and not a stand alone championship event the vest issue doesnt apply..not 100% on that tho.

Murph_D

jrkb wrote: »

Heard because its a a mass participation event and not a stand alone championship event the vest issue doesnt apply..not 100% on that tho.

Where did you hear that? Not stated in AI rules for road marathons, and there is only one national marathon, that has always been a mass-participation event. So it's unlikely that that logic would hold up, even (or especially) in the pub!

Chivito550

Funny thing with all this is that if Freddy came second he’d keep his silver medal as these “rules” only apply to national title holder. By winning he ends up with nothing, and allows the 4th place runner (Scullion) to take bronze (who would have ended up with nothing had Freddy been 2nd.

What a mess.

GOH should be DQed too for breaking the rules. If he can wear what he likes, then we all can too.

jrkb

Murph_D wrote: »

Where did you hear that? Not stated in AI rules for road marathons, and there is only one national marathon, that has always been a mass-participation event. So it's unlikely that that logic would hold up, even (or especially) in the pub!

Well it hasnt always been mass participation, in the past it was a stand alone race,but since its now part of DCM much like the nat half is now in the rock and roll and the nat 10k is in the great ire run.like I say not 100% on this just hearing it from lots of runners.

ger664

Chivito550 wrote: »

GOH should be DQed too for breaking the rules. If he can wear what he likes, then we all can too.

I would agree on this. You should always wear your club vest and wear it with pride even if it chaffes the tits off you.

They should have DQed Gary at the same point as Freddie but now they will most likely do the presentation and then DQ him the day after just to make a complete and utter balls of it.

Chivito550

6 months unbroken residency rule is laughable. Say a French person moves to Ireland to work. He’s a triple jumper. About 3 weeks before the national T&F championships he goes home to France for his sisters wedding. He is now ineligible from all national competition for 6 months.

How utterly ridiculous and discriminatory is that.

Residency should be 183 days of the previous 365. AAI are making it up as they go along. I hope Freddy appeals.

ThisRegard

Chivito550 wrote: »

6 months unbroken residency rule is laughable.

It is, but not for the reasons you outline.

Chivito550 wrote: »

How utterly ridiculous and discriminatory is that.

You could argue the opposite. Someone starts as a kid and works hard through to senior level in Ireland but someone blows in for a few months and can be Irish national champion?

Something like the IRFU's residency rule I think would be better.

Chivito550

ThisRegard wrote: »

It is, but not for the reasons you outline.



You could argue the opposite. Someone starts as a kid and works hard through to senior level in Ireland but someone blows in for a few months and can be Irish national champion?

Something like the IRFU's residency rule I think would be better.

The way I look at it, being Irish champion is not the same as representing Ireland in international competition. If you reside in Ireland and compete for an Irish club, then you are part of the Irish athletics community and deserve a chance to compete in the national championships.

In Australia I was eligible to compete in all championships. I never had any intention to get an Australian passport. But I did live there and I was part of a local club, so why shouldn’t I be eligible?

It would be easier to take this stuff seriously if AAI applied their own rules consistently but they don’t. Jeremy Philips is the ultimate example of this. Freddy is 10,000 times more involved in Irish athletics than him, who flew in for a week or two. Yet Philips is the one who gets to be national champion. How on earth is that fair?

Why have rules if you’re only going to apply them sometimes?

Murph_D

Chivito550 wrote: »

GOH should be DQed too for breaking the rules. If he can wear what he likes, then we all can too.

Well this keeps being said, but it is clear in the rules that an athlete can be exempted from this. GOH, I have read elesewhere, has claimed that this exemption was granted at elites meeting.

The circumstances under which an exemption might be granted are not specified, however, which is not very transparent - can they be made up on the spot?

Or maybe they are - in an updated version of the rules that AI hasn’t bothered to put online.

RacoonQueen

jrkb wrote: »

Heard because its a a mass participation event and not a stand alone championship event the vest issue doesnt apply..not 100% on that tho.

jrkb wrote: »

Well it hasnt always been mass participation, in the past it was a stand alone race,but since its now part of DCM much like the nat half is now in the rock and roll and the nat 10k is in the great ire run.like I say not 100% on this just hearing it from lots of runners.

No, this is the exact part of the rule they changed from what I can see. If this was the case the National 10k, National Half and National Marathon would not require athletes to wear club singlets which would be ridiculous. They are team competitions, you need to know who you are racing against. That would be like footballers getting onto the pitch wearing whatever they wanted.

Chivito550 wrote: »

The way I look at it, being Irish champion is not the same as representing Ireland in international competition. If you reside in Ireland and compete for an Irish club, then you are part of the Irish athletics community and deserve a chance to compete in the national championships.

Agreed. If you are racing here, training here and contributing to the community you should be eligible. Don't know Freddy's situation or what else other than running he does here, but, he has been racing here for years and was previously a member of a different Irish club - so seems to me he is an active part of the athletics community.
This has been very badly handled by Athletics Ireland.

The Bin Man

Murph_D wrote: »

Well this keeps being said, but it is clear in the rules that an athlete can be exempted from this. GOH, I have read elesewhere, has claimed that this exemption was granted at elites meeting.

The circumstances under which an exemption might be granted are not specified, however, which is not very transparent - can they be made up on the spot?

Or maybe they are - in an updated version of the rules that AI hasn’t bothered to put online.

If that's the case, then GOH should be national champion (according to the rules).

event

Chivito550 wrote: »

6 months unbroken residency rule is laughable. Say a French person moves to Ireland to work. He’s a triple jumper. About 3 weeks before the national T&F championships he goes home to France for his sisters wedding. He is now ineligible from all national competition for 6 months.

How utterly ridiculous and discriminatory is that.

Residency should be 183 days of the previous 365. AAI are making it up as they go along. I hope Freddy appeals.

What would he appeal? He didn't meet the criteria

Duanington

So 6 months unbroken residency ....judging by Strava, both Scullion and Sergiu have been away for substantial amounts of time training abroad over the last few months, breaking their 6 months residency....would that have been an issue for either of them if they won? Should it be an issue now that they are bumped up the medal ranking?

Its actually embarrassing trying to explain the events of DCM to the same people ( in work) that I have been trying to get to join a club for the last few months.

Chivito550

Duanington wrote: »

So 6 months unbroken residency ....judging by Strava, both Scullion and Sergiu have been away for substantial amounts of time training abroad over the last few months, breaking their 6 months residency....would that have been an issue for either of them if they won? Should it be an issue now that they are bumped up the medal ranking?

Its actually embarrassing trying to explain the events of DCM to the same people ( in work) that I have been trying to get to join a club for the last few months.

Well they are citizens so it doesn’t matter for them.

Residency should simply be 6 of the previous 12 months. Expecting somebody to not leave the country for a few days in the 6 months leading up to a race is laughable.

RacoonQueen

Duanington wrote: »

So 6 months unbroken residency ....judging by Strava, both Scullion and Sergiu have been away for substantial amounts of time training abroad over the last few months, breaking their 6 months residency....would that have been an issue for either of them if they won? Should it be an issue now that they are bumped up the medal ranking?

No, because Sergiu and Scullion have Irish passports or can get Irish passports while Freddy can't.

Duanington

RacoonQueen wrote: »

No, because Sergiu and Scullion have Irish passports or can get Irish passports while Freddy can't.

Thanks, I wasn't sure - so in a sport where altitude\warm weather training is the norm...while training for DCM, you can only take part in that if you've got the right colour passport.

What a strange mess this really is - while I thought GOH's comments after the race took away from his own (incredible) performance, this whole fiasco is damaging and embarrassing

ThisRegard

Duanington wrote: »

you can only take part in that if you've got the right colour passport.

Well that's not true.

Duanington

ThisRegard wrote: »

Well that's not true.

I meant leave the country for altitude training\warm weather training....which I assume is what broke Freddy's 6 months up ( could be wrong there of course)

ooter

Chivito550 wrote: »

Funny thing with all this is that if Freddy came second he’d keep his silver medal as these “rules” only apply to national title holder.

If that's true it's pretty ridiculous.