UKA selection standards for the world champs

[drobbie]

very tough standards - UKA won't accept ranking invites in the 200, 400, 800, 1500, 5000 or 400H. Will only accept invites for athletes who achieve a UKA Q - set as predicted top 8 finish.

[treadwater1]

I think there will be a lot of unhappy athletes tonight. We’ve been making steady progress in the shot put over the last few years for example, it’s doubtful we will be taking any athletes in that event now

[Occasional Hope]

Tough indeed.

I suspect a lot of the athletes who welcomed Jack Buckner taking over will now be rather less keen.

[RunUnlimited]

Insanity.


Example; UKA standard for the women's 10,000m is set at 30:40.00. In the entire history of women's 10,000m running, only 3 British women have ever run faster: New UK record holder Elish McColgan, Paula Radcliffe and Jessica Warner-Judd... the latter two having done so last year. The next nearest of runners still currently active are all outside 31 minutes.

HOW is this going to incentivize athletes to get better when you push the target so far out of reach? Does Buckner want athletes to risk injuring themselves in the pursuit of these stupid targets?

What the hell is that dude thinking?!

[Laps]

He is thinking that it worked in swimming and that he is appointed to try to make it work in Athletics.
Easier said than done with the amateur ethos (what Buckner calls egalitarian tradition) in Athletics and with athletes scattered all over the world.


Article from Shropshire Star Feb 27th

UK Athletics is ready to tighten its selection policy in a bid for Olympic glory, with chief executive Jack Buckner acknowledging the need to “really focus on the big hitters"

Buckner admits UKA could cut the number of funded athletes and team numbers as he looks for improved results following a disappointing 2020 Games.

Team GB failed to win an Olympic track and field gold at Tokyo for the first time since the 1996 Atlanta Games.
Former British Swimming CEO Buckner wants athletics to follow success in the pool and become more ruthless ahead of the summer’s World Championships in Budapest and next year’s Games in Paris, having felt athletics has become too soft.

“Yeah, I think we are,” he said, ahead of the start of the European Indoor Championships in Istanbul on Thursday.
“Already there will be a bit of a shift in our selection philosophy which is going to be quite hard in some ways. Potentially there will be less athletes funded.
“We will be moving towards more around the Olympics selection philosophy, more about that performance mentality.
We need to identify where the medals are coming from and have the right resources in place.
“We will be moving in that direction. In the Olympics and the World Championships there will be smaller teams to create a better understanding where the opportunities lie. I think that will help. It is a tricky balance to get right.”

Buckner was chief executive at British Swimming for five years which culminated with a historic Tokyo Olympics.
Team GB won eight swimming medals in Japan – four golds, three silvers and a bronze – and it was the first time in 113 years GB claimed four swimming golds at one Games.

Buckner added: “You need to really focus on the big hitters. If you look at swimming, there were 6-10 people – like Adam Peaty, Duncan Scott, James Guy, Tom Dean, Freya Anderson – but what we were very good at was maximising the talent we had.
“That’s what we (athletics) need to do. We could have a list of 6-10 names and we need to be all over them. It’s quite hard because athletics has a tradition as being slightly more egalitarian.“What we were like in swimming was we were a little bit more ruthless about who is going to deliver for you. We need to be a bit tougher around that. The relays are key, we did that in swimming.

“We need to identify where the medals are coming from and have the right resources in place.”

[Ladyloz]

Not impressed with Buckner so far but the World Athletics Standard is 30:40 with the lower UK standard set at 31:10. However with a quota of just 27 not sure how many will be invited in the 10Ks

[Ladyloz]

Oh yes, all those 'we must have an athletics person in charge'. Which I never really got.

Perhaps Jo Coates, who didn't just want to set medal targets but also wanted to focus on increasing number of finalists and representation across all events wasn't so bad after all.

[MysteryBrick]

No-one jumped higher by making the bar lower, but if no-one can clear the bar you don't even have a competition. I don't like this at all.

[LoveSprints1]

very tough standards - UKA won't accept ranking invites in the 200, 400, 800, 1500, 5000 or 400H. Will only accept invites for athletes who achieve a UKA Q - set as predicted top 8 finish.

This is about making elite athletics competitions accessible for a few, none of whom is guaranteed to deliver medals at the said events! It is incredibly sad that talented developing athletes who have achieved will not get the opportunity to make teams. Of course, the bar should be high but not unreachable.

[Balgair]

Well I guess the smaller team will certainly happen... I take it field events just aren't wanted though, I can only think of three athletes currently qualified and maybe three more likely to make the standards - that's Sawyers, Okoye and Lake, with Bradshaw, Ugen and Miller as likely/possible. And even with the harsh pruning a regular underperformer still makes it (no disrespect intended to Lake but she's not a championship performer), I'd rather see more of the shot putters get in, frankly anyone who gets invited in the field side, just to try and encourage more youngsters to stick to it!

Same applies to track, really, but in field it's all the more noticeable due to how few world-class athletes we have... we certainly won't get more by denying those we have the experience though, especially the likes of McKinna, Miller etc, who do tend to produce their best in championships (thank goodness Sawyers got that amazing jump).

I do get the idea of setting targets for accepting WA invites, but, realistic targets which might encourage aiming higher? Not targets where you can count on one hand the number of British athletes who've ever hit them... or one finger in the case of wPV and mDisc.

[marilyn1]

reference Ladyloz comment i would refer posters to Jonathan Gaults article on Letsrun about the rules re the selection of 10 K runners. Briefly WA have qyietly introduced the automatic selection of the top 8 ranked Xcountry athletes in to the 27 athlete " targets". The point he makes is that top runners will find it very hard to now qualify for a 10 K place because of the above and their will likely be no ranked athletes at all, just the Entry standard achievers , plus the 8 xcountry athletes. As of today, Gault quotes there are 15 ES athletes plus 8 xcountry athletes, many of whom are miles off the WA track target, and this equals 23 athletes already.

[treadwater1]

I think there’s a bit of a disconnect between the selection policy side of the debate and the desired outcome of more medals. Raising the standards isn’t going to make much of a difference to Dina or Jake W, this policy isn’t going to make a difference in the short term, all the potential medalists for the next two seasons are already known to UKA. I’ve felt that tough selection decisions in the past had the intention of saying to young athletes You need to raise your performances 1 or 2% to make the team, this announcement today is more of the same. Some will react well to it but even if they do there’s no guarantee they will make the next improvement needed to become world class

Shaun Pickering makes the point tonight on Twitter that UKAs job is to take care of the elite end of the sport. Developing athletes is down to individual national federations and participation at age-group championships

[marilyn1]

Well I guess the smaller team will certainly happen... I take it field events just aren't wanted though, I can only think of three athletes currently qualified and maybe three more likely to make the standards - that's Sawyers, Okoye and Lake, with Bradshaw, Ugen and Miller as likely/possible. And even with the harsh pruning a regular underperformer still makes it (no disrespect intended to Lake but she's not a championship performer), I'd rather see more of the shot putters get in, frankly anyone who gets invited in the field side, just to try and encourage more youngsters to stick to it!

Same applies to track, really, but in field it's all the more noticeable due to how few world-class athletes we have... we certainly won't get more by denying those we have the experience though, especially the likes of McKinna, Miller etc, who do tend to produce their best in championships (thank goodness Sawyers got that amazing jump).

I do get the idea of setting targets for accepting WA invites, but, realistic targets which might encourage aiming higher? Not targets where you can count on one hand the number of British athletes who've ever hit them... or one finger in the case of wPV and mDisc.

We will probably all have to get used to field eventers, and others, being selected for their achievements, rather than to placate special interest people, or do I mean coaches? I was appalled when some GB male Triple Jumper was selected for Tokyo on the basis of an outlier, one off result, with no attempt to consider that the athlete was not anywhere near a 17 metre jump form, set more than a considerable time previously. He disappointed . I await how the current policy will impact our level of performance with reference to medals.
But i have not been a supporter of take everybody philosophy, which is most favoured here.

[marilyn1]

Tough indeed.

I suspect a lot of the athletes who welcomed Jack Buckner taking over will now be rather less keen.

Whats so tough about 8.15 for the 3k Steeple?. The main reason for the over reaction here is because our male field eventers are inadequate and not of the standard to be world level representatives. We had no athletes in Istanbul in the field events. Shocking..
The womens standards are not so tough, in my view, and just indicate that standards across the board are poor in the UK . The athletes in this country should surely be inspired to achieve the stated standards, and they may be.
Apart for our awful field events standards in the mens events , the womens field events standards aint anything to write home about.
In the UK currently, we have high elite talent in a handful of track events and, frankly, if in the next 2 globals, Budapest and Paris, we take a max of say 50 athletes i will not be miffed

[Occasional Hope]

It also undermines WA's wanting to fill fields with people from rankings. If every country did the same we'd be seeing some pretty small fields in some events.

[DerbyCountyinNZ]

A similar direction to that taken by New Zealand. The intention seems to be to limit the number of potential "failures" at major events, which is essentially arse-covering by the selectors. What it actually does is drive athletes out of the sport before they have reached their potential.

[Ladyloz]

The Dutch and Swedish are other Federations that have similar policies

[philipo]

A similar direction to that taken by New Zealand. The intention seems to be to limit the number of potential "failures" at major events, which is essentially arse-covering by the selectors. What it actually does is drive athletes out of the sport before they have reached their potential.

Nonsense as i expected on this topic. If an athete wants to be the .maximum he believes he can be be will not be driven out of the sport just stick to his belief in his talent.

[MysteryBrick]

Bills have to be paid etc.