Irish Olympic Marathon selection put on long finger

drrunner wrote: »

I would be no great defender of how AAI conduct their business with regard to placing athletes at the forefront of consideration, however I do have a little bit of sympathy for them in this situation. 12 months ago it would have been impossible for a lot of people to realistically believe that we would have 4 qualifiers in the women's marathon and so maximising the qualifying period would have seemed like a good idea. Clearly, it would also be impossible and unfair to move the goalposts for anyone still seeking qualification. However, the situation has been exacerbated by the vagueness of the criteria by which selection will be made in a case like this. What would be really helpful right now would be if AAI published a clear set of criteria by which they will make their decision allowing for potential additional qualifiers (e.g. the fastest 3 times or whatever...)...however chance would be a fine thing

This is right.

For all the comments having a pop at the AAI here, the selection agreement has been in place for a long time and nobody had a problem with it until now. They can't change the goalposts just because we are in the seemingly unlikely position of having 4 qualifiers.

The time to take issue with the late team selection was months ago, not now.

Who would people select?

I'd go Ava, Linda and Catriona. Dropping Maria. She raced previously at Olympics albeit kicking and screaming so to exclude her could cause huge issues. But leaving those reasons aside and purely athletics based I'd pick the those three.

Linda Byrne is a given in my opinion. Being the national marathon champion and 10k champ on the roads has to count for something. Also, her age is a major factor. She has lots of marathons and lots of potential major champs in front of her (standards allowing).

Ava Hutchinson should be picked too. Again, her age counts and she has the fastest PB.

After that, i could not call. Maria McCambridge has been a brilliant servant (TM every rugby journo in the country) of Irish athletics. Jennings has come to the sport late and shown a large amount of talent and promise.

Whatever happens, there are arguments for them all and it will be incredibly tough on the person to miss out. Gun to head and based on purely athletics reasons: Byrne, Hutchinson and Jennings.

T runner wrote: »

It's up to the aai to work this out. If someone qualifies on may20 there is simply not enough time to prepare adequately for the Olympic marathon. This was just bad planning.
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I agree, anyone qualifying on May 20th needs to do something special because of the time scale to London.

I do say it is only considered bad planning because of the scenario that 4 had qualified. Not many people would have predicted this happening. If we were sitting here with 1 or 2 athletes qualified and Linda Byrne and Ava Hutchinson planning late May attempts at the standard after failing in Dublin/Hueston then we would all be cheering them on and they would be grateful for the extra time.

myflipflops wrote: »

I agree, anyone qualifying on May 20th needs to do something special because of the time scale to London.

I do say it is only considered bad planning because of the scenario that 4 had qualified. Not many people would have predicted this happening. If we were sitting here with 1 or 2 athletes qualified and Linda Byrne and Ava Hutchinson planning late May attempts at the standard after failing in Dublin/Hueston then we would all be cheering them on and they would be grateful for the extra time.

Only one of the 5 criteria given for selecting athletes is for actually chieving the Olympic standards. The others are for distinguishing athletes who have already reached the standard. These criteria are for all Athletic events so clearly the possibility of more than 3 athletes qualifying has been thoroughly considered and take 4 out of 5 selection criteria. Also the marathon and race walk selections are earlier than others so clearly some realisation that more preparation is necessary is there.
The athletes were asked to sign an acknowledgemment of the selection criteria so they had absolutely no input in them and Patsy McGonnigles implication that athletes had shifted their position by complaining now is not correct.
Not allowing sufficient time for race preparation after selection is a blunder in planning and rests solely at the AAIs door.
Just because they didnt get lucky and have the consequences of the mistake
minimised by having fewer women than the quota with the A standard makes no difference to the poorness of the planning.
Best of luck to whomever is going for the time. It will have to be a good one: 3 of the 5 criteria for selection are concerned with race preparation.

i.e an athlete who legitimately reaches an A standard in the requisite timeframe could be penalised in 3 of the 5 selection criteria because of the closeness of her/his qualifying date to the deadline of the timeframe. Surely points to a glaring error in the parameters of that timeframe?

Just had a thought, and perhaps it is flawed but here it goes. Most of us here (myself included) tend to harp on about athletes (particularly young ones) needing to be sent to the Olympics for experience, so that it will stand to them for future Games'. Well Maria is the only one with that valuable Olympic experience, so would it not be a bit hypocritical to leave her at home? Surely Olympic experience has to be a huge factor in deciding who goes? I realise she wasn't very very young when she competed in the Olympics, but even still, she has what neither of the other 3 have, and her qualifying time is close to the others. IMO she has to go if that argument about "experience" is ever to be taken seriously.

Womens marathon team will be announced Monday :eek: