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**philipo** · 10-03-23, 11:14

I have often railed against the one off qualifying performance nature of qualifying with the required standard which ., many .moons ago , was twice in the qual period.
I am glad to see the largest possible team philosophy is being challenged by discussion.

**philipo** · 10-03-23, 11:24

I dont buy the restraint of trade point at all. (typical lawyer stuff)The only restraint is not being good enough to meet imposed standards Who imposes those standards is of course a matter for debate.

WA does not pay .money to certain British athletes but
lottery ticket buyers do.

**Laps** · 10-03-23, 14:17

Lawyers will happily bleed a sport dry in pursuit of a principle. All you need is two sides to dig in. In this case it comes down to opinion about who should select the GB Athletics team and what is in it's long term best interests. You have the national governing body who are set up to administer and look after the interests of the sport in the UK and those favouring World Athletics whose main interest in this case is the efficiency of their competition and their opinion (rankings) about the best people to take part in it. Is it not ironic that some who wrote criticising the whole idea of WA rankings now want them used to partly select our national team.

Some may think the ngb will back down when challenged on this issue. I doubt it. It goes to the heart of who runs Athletics in the UK. It may also have implications as to the sports funding from UK Sport.

As for restraint of trade that applies to any selection process as philipo points out. Just claiming restraint of trade for UKA standing in the way of World Championship non-qualified invitees seems like taking the principle to ridiculous extremes. An Edge Hill University summary on the subject says this :-
"Traditionally, governing bodies have argued that restraints are justified, inter alia, with reference to the need to: promote competitive balance; incentivise youth development, encourage solidarity between participants; maintain the integrity, stability and proper functioning of competitions; protect national teams; and maintain the commercial viability of sport. The doctrine requires that restraints are reasonable not only in the interests of the parties imposing the rule, but also proportionate and in the wider public interest."

Any amount to sustain and defeat legal argument there.
If you think setting lawyers upon your sport is a good way to proceed to win the argument you are making a very bad mistake in my opinion.

**Sovietvest** · 10-03-23, 15:07

Originally posted by Laps View Post

Lawyers will happily bleed a sport dry in pursuit of a principle. All you need is two sides to dig in. In this case it comes down to opinion about who should select the GB Athletics team and what is in it's long term best interests. You have the national governing body who are set up to administer and look after the interests of the sport in the UK and World Athletics whose main interest in this case is the efficiency of their competition and their opinion (rankings) about the best people to take part in it.

Some may think the ngb will back down when challenged on this issue. I doubt it. It goes to the heart of who runs Athletics in the UK.

If you think setting lawyers on your sport is the way to proceed you are making a very bad mistake in my opinion.

I understand your dislike of lawyers, Laps and particular in this context given that legal fees made British Athletics bankrupt after the Modahl affair. I'm not talking about athletes suing UKA for millions in lost earnings though. a small number of athletes would be affected and I'd assume the loss of earnings would run into the tens of thousands rather than millions - none of the athletes of the standard we are talking about are getting rich through this sport.

I'd hope however, that a crowd funded legal challenge - or better still - just a threat of one - would be enough to change the policy.

I personally do not think we can leave it to UKA to look after "the interests of the sport in the UK". Successive regimes have done a pretty poor job of that and I'd like fans and athletes to have much more of a say in how the sport is run.

Don't forget that pressure will come also from WA - this is undermining their World Rankings system. Even if UKA won't listen to fans and athletes, it will be hard for them to ignore WA.

**Ladyloz** · 10-03-23, 16:50

Really interesting comments by Dai Greene on twitter. Basically saying how he only made the standard by a tenth for 2009 worlds. He ran well in the semi at worlds but by his own admission then underperformed in the final but how that taught him a lot and he doubts he would then have gone on to win Commonwealth; Euros and World golds without that experience.

Also talks about how difficult it can be for up and coming athletes to get into the right races to obtain standards.

(3) Dai Greene on Twitter: "1/ The @BritAthletics policy of only taking medalists and top 8 athletes is going to hinder not only an athletes development but also their chance to become full time athletes. I know that their policy standard (for a lot of events) is based on the IAAF standard." / Twitter

There is a very plausible scenario in Dai's own event where Alastair Chalmers sets a new PB of e.g. 48.75 but this is still 0.05 short of the standard but could easily be within the quota to receive a World Rankings invite. In this scenario he stays home and misses out on vital experience to aid his development and push him on further to run 48 low i.e. exactly the sort of time required to make global finals.

**marra** · 10-03-23, 17:24

Yeah, I was looking at last year's team and looking at some of the people who were in it. Alex Haydock Wilson came immediately to mind. Clearly no superstar of the sport. Wasn't even within 0.5s of the qualifying mark for the WC last year.

Got a ranking place last year though. Then ran well enough to smash his PB in Eugene and finish a creditable 10th in the SFs. Following that, got a bronze in the individual in Munich and anchored the 4x4 team to gold there.

Whilst his performance in Eugene was hardly world beating, it's not unreasonable to believe that the experience might have helped him in Munich. And neither is it unreasonable to imagine that, without that experience, said Munich performance might not have happened.

Had this current set up been in place last year, he wouldn't have made the Eugene team.

I understand the financial constraints and such like, as well as understanding some people who think we take too many 'passengers'. It's a tough problem to have. But I also worry about the development path for athletes like AHW under this kind of system.

And the point about athletes not getting into the events to get times/distances is a crucial one for me. As is also the fact that some athletes clearly are better at championship performances than others - we're currently all happy about Jasmin Sawyers, who is the epitome of that. Hell, going back to the 400m, Christine famously saved her best performances for champs.

But we're changing to a system that actively wants people to show their best at other times? Even if that might mean they aren't at top form for champs? Surely, if anything, it seems most likely to benefit those like Prescod who get the quick time somewhere but don't perform on the big day? Is that really what those in favour of this system would want?

As I said, I hope it works and I have egg all over my face. But it seems very questionable to me right now that it will.

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UKA selection standards for the world champs

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