Don't hate, celebrate.

The athletics is yet to start at the Olympics, but during the first week of the Olympics we have seen some disturbing trends.

We’ve seen James Magnussen criticised on social media after he was too disappointed to conduct a post race interview, Emily Seebohm mocked for getting emotional over missing the gold medal, and even some gutter journalism claiming if athletes aren’t going to win they should “go and get a real job”.

Since when was the Olympic mantra win or go home? The Olympics are about celebrating humanity, inspiring a generation, choosing to come together peacefully to play sport, to transcend race, religion, poverty, even war.

 I know how you feel Derek...

It is this win or go home line of thinking that puts pressure on the swimmers (and other athletes) to such an extent that when they don’t win they feel like a failure.

Emily Seebohm wasn’t a failure, she swam some of her fastest times of her life, she was close to the world record in the heat, she got her hopes up, had them dashed, and then had a microphone stuck in her grill and was asked to share her feelings.

James Magnussen is at his first Olympics, and many a great athlete has suffered from nerves in their first Olympics contest. Add to that immense pressure of an expected (almost demanded) gold medal, and it can easily weigh down a pair of shoulders that need to remain buoyant.

Not only that, but after the 4x100m relay defeat, Magnussen was shredded on social media for daring to be standoffish, while the pressed dismissed him as yesterdays news. Again, a microphone shoved in his face after disappointment, and then judged on his reaction.

Take a moment and remember the last time you had your hopes dashed, or remember the last time you were at your worst. Maybe it was a day you didn’t have enough sleep and felt a bit sick and were grumpy and you took it out on someone when you shouldn’t have.

Imagine if someone shoved a microphone in your face at that moment, and asked “Well this is you at your worst, tell Australia how you are feeling”.

"I FEEL LIKE PUNCHING WHOEVER ATE MY LAST COOKIE!"

When an athlete has lived and breathed for something for four years, and it doesn’t pan out, in that moment, they are at their worst, and in that moment they deserve understanding, not judgement.

The thought that athletes who aren’t winning should ‘get a real job’ just smacks of ignorance when countless Olympians already have to work full time, or work multiple part time jobs to fund their sporting dream.

Most Olympic sports are supported once every four years by sponsors and the public, but these sports don’t go into hibernation for four years and then spring back up again. Between Olympics, the sports and their athletes are in a constant battle for attention and funding.

To these sports, the Olympics is the ‘grand final’. Imagine if you only supported your favourite footy team once every few years when they made a grand final, and then when they lost it, you told the players to go and get real jobs.

"I'll see you in class, jerk"

Sorry, but if you didn’t support the team between finals, if you didn't care how they were doing in the months and years leading in, then you don’t have all the information to make a judgement on finals day.

If the public want better results from Olympic sports, it's not rocket Science. Support the sports between Olympics.

Find that sport that you enjoyed watching at the games and find out when and where it’s played locally. If you’re physically able, participate. Failing that, go and watch a meet/game and support those who give it a go. If that’s still too much for you, watch it on TV, watch it online, or find a social media hub for others who enjoy discussing the sport... Do something, because if you don't lift a finger, then in four more years if the results in that sport haven't improved at all, then part of that is on you now, because you could have helped but you didn't do your bit.

If enough people cared about the Olympic sports between Olympics, you’d eventually see a shift, a rise in participation, ratings, funding, and performance, but unfortunately, it is a pipe dream for most of these sports which will never gain regular public support in this country.

Many of the athletes in these sports HAVE given up, and had to either switch to better paying sports or go and get ‘real jobs’. Josh Ross has given up on the sport twice and struggles to make ends meet, Aaron Rouge-Serret is headed to the police force with a desire to get a steady income, and a lot of talent over the years has been lost forever. What is left are those who are prepared to struggle on the meager funding provided while they try and compete against the worlds best.

Rob a bank. Run from this man... Smart.

And yet they battle on, knowing there isn’t much chance they will ever make a living from the sport, but  year after year they sacrifice time with their family, scrape by, all for that one chance in four years when they will have the opportunity to compete in their chosen sport while the public is watching.

If you’re watching now, don’t hate, celebrate.

How lady luck deserted my idols

Like most sports, athletics is a sport of tremendous highs and lows, and the reason for that is because of the incredible amount of hard work and sacrifice that is invested by the athlete to get them to their goals.

When all of that effort pays off, there is no better feeling, all the days of working yourself to exhaustion, all the pain, it all can become worth it in an instant when everything comes together.

The flip side of the coin is a sobering slap in the face, when you put the work in, but don’t get the result you want, or the result you feel you deserve. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.

Injuries are of course, the most common cause for the ass to fall out of your biscuit, but certainly not the only one. Peaking at the wrong time, an opponent shanking a once in a lifetime performance, or just having to compete in the same decade as a genetic freak, can all have you kicking the sand thinking it’s just not fair.

Many of the athletes I idolise in the sport have come up against situations like this, they all were successful, sure, but at one point or another they got shafted (sometimes repeatedly), and they really didn’t deserve it.

800m – Wilson Kipketer never winning Olympic gold

Until my later years in high school, I was about 40 kilograms soaking wet, and though I dabbled in the sprints, being light as a feather with shoulders like a brown snake, I had more success in middle distance. For this reason, throughout the mid 90s I was a huge fan of Wilson Kipketer as he stomped a mudhole through all his rivals in the two lap event.

Kipketer was the best 800m runner the other side of David Rudisha. He was rarely beaten between 1994 and 1999, and though he broke the world record (twice) and tasted great success at world championships (winning gold in 1995, 1997 and 1999)… He never won the elusive Olympic gold.

Kipketer was born in Kenya and as an 18 year old traveled to Denmark to study at the Copenhagen University. He enjoyed his time there enough to apply for Danish citizenship, and ran for Denmark when he won the 800m at the 1995 world championships.

Unfortunately a year later, the rules for Olympic competition differed to those for the world championships. At the Olympics, since Kipketer was not yet a citizen of Denmark (that process would be completed in 1997), he could only run if Kenya granted him permission. As Kipketer running would have greatly reduced Kenya’s chances of winning the event, they denied him permission to run at the Olympics.

Kipketer beat all the eventual Olympic medalists in other races that year, and remained undefeated in 1996, but wasn’t able to compete in Atlanta and his best chance at Olympic glory evaded him.

By the time the 2000 Olympics rolled around, Kipketer no longer had any citizenship issues, but he wasn’t the runner he was previously after a bout with Malaria in 1998. Still, even though he was not at his best, and pretty much butchered the last 300m, Kipketer came heatbreakingly close to winning the gold medal, finishing just 0.06 of a second behind the eventual winner, Germany’s Nils Schumann.

Four years later in Athens, few gave 33 year old Kipketer a chance at winning, but he seemed to gain form throughout the heats and semi finals, to the point where some (or maybe just me) were starting to believe he could get a fairytale finish.

As Kipketer took the lead with 80m to go I jumped up and down in my living room, I thought he finally had it… But he was passed in the final few meters by Russia’s Yuriy Borzakovskiy and Kenya’s Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, finishing with the bronze medal, just 0.2 of a second from the gold.

He ended his career a world record holder, three time world champion, being ranked number 1 in the 800m six different seasons, having run 1:43 or better almost every year from 1994 to 2004 (2001 was the only exception)… But no Olympic gold medal.

400m – Darren Clark not winning an Olympic medal.

Michael Johnson is my all time idol over 400m, and he had his fair share of back luck, but most of it was over 200m. The favourite for the 200m at the 1992 Olympics, he got food poisoning prior to the games and was run out in the semis, and injury denied him the chance to defend in Sydney the 200m title he won at the 1996 Olympics. Had luck gone his way he certainly could have been a three time 200m Olympic champion.

He’s pushed off this list though, because despite the fact that for years he had to chase around a 400m WR time that Butch Reynolds somehow pulled from nowhere, at 31 years of age at the 1999 World Championships in Seville, MJ turned it all around and told Reynolds where he could stick his world record with a race that still makes my hair stand on end.

So instead in here I'm going to put an Aussie legend named Darren Clark, who 24 years ago at the Seoul Olympics set a national 400m record that still stands. Being an Aussie 400m runner not much taller than myself, perhaps the only reason that Clark isn’t my all time idol over 400m is because he did most of his running while I was busily pretending to be Optimus Prime.

I was introduced to Clark as a wide eyed 8 year old that was still trying to understand what steroids were and why Ben Johnson was suddenly a bad man. I can recall watching the 1988 Olympic 400m final a few days later when Aussie Darren Clark lined up in the field.

Clark had set the Australian record of 44.38 in the semi final, but in the final he couldn't match the three Americans as they cleared away from him in the home straight, and he crossed the line in the thanks-for-coming, you-get-nothing position. (otherwise known as 4^th).

Because the Internet wasn’t around back then, I wasn’t able to hop onto youtube or wikipedia and research Clark’s career, if I had, I’d have learned that he had already been much unluckier previously.

As an 18 year old 4 years earlier, Clark led into the home straight in the Los Angeles Olympics 400m final, only for someone to drop an invisible piano on his back as he faded (to again finish 4th ) in a time of 44.75. (Which was at the time a new Australian record and is still the Australian under 20 record). 

In LA he was just a cruel 0.04 of a second from the bronze. (the 4 key on my keyboard is about to give out here), and with a little bit of luck, could have easily walked away with an Olympic medal or two.

100/200m - Frankie Fredericks, king of the silver.

Namibian Frankie Fredericks is one of the best sprinters of all time. In the 200m, he has broken the 20 second barrier 24 times (for now, more than anyone else on the planet), and in the 100m broke 10 seconds 27 times.

The only real problem Frankie had, was that even though he ran some of the fastest races in history, he was unlucky enough to almost always come up against someone better.

At the 1992 Olympics, in the 100m Fredericks was beaten to the line by Great Britain's Linford Christie, while in the 200m he faced American Michael Marsh, who had almost broken the world record in the semi finals. Fredericks pushed Marsh to the line, but again he came away with the silver medal.

I don't remember much about Frankie in 1992, at the time to me he was just some runner from a country I’d never heard of, but after finishing 4th in the 1995 world championship 100m final, Fredericks went to help Linford Christie (who had pulled a muscle in the race), and just like that, the gesture of sportsmanship made me a fan.

By the time the 1996 Olympics rolled around, Frankie was in the shape of his life and I was on hype street in Frederick town. Leading into the Olympics he came close to the 9.85 world record, running 9.86 into a headwind. If I’d had any money to my name as a 16 year old, I’d have bet it all on him winning the Olympic 100m title, but after a good start that resulted in one of the fastest times in history, (9.89), Canada's Donovan Bailey steamed home over the top to set a new WR of 9.84 and beat him once again into second place.

In the 200m, I was torn between two idols, Michael Johnson and Frankie Fredericks, somehow I wanted both to win (and in a way they kind of did), together running two of the fastest three times in history. I didn’t get to see the race live, I was in Tamworth competing at the north west athletics carnival (fitting), when they announced over the loud speaker Michael Johnson had just set a new 200m world record. I was excited, but I had to go up to the office and bug them to find out what Frankie had run and where he had placed.

He’d run 19.68, almost breaking Michael Johnson's world record of 19.66, but he was yet again beaten into second place as Johnson was busy out in front shattering that world record of his with a time of 19.32.

Though he did win a world championship gold in the 200m in 2003, his world championship career was also littered with silver medals, winning 200m silvers in 1991, 1995 and 1997, to give him a tally at the majors of 1 gold, 7 silver medals, despite laying down some of the fastest times over both distances for over a decade.

Long Jump – Carl Lewis not holding the world record.

While the rest of the athletes in this blog entry were indeed unlucky, and I felt for them, I wasn't really jumping up and down about it. Sure it was bad luck, but I wasn't going to lose sleep over it.

This one though, is different. The rest of this blog post until now has just been the entree to this main course.

Carl Lewis not holding the long jump world record I see as the greatest injustice of luck and fate that there is in track and field.

Carl Lewis is the best long jumper of all time, and I’ll argue to the death anyone who disagrees with me. The injustice is, he sits a paltry third on the all time list.

Sitting 2^nd on the all time list is Bob Beamon. Now respect where respect is due, but when you look at the stats its fairly clear that Beamon was the beneficiary of pretty much perfect jumping conditions the day he jumped 8.90m at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics.

He hit the board perfectly, had the maximum legal tailwind of 2.0m/s, and was jumping at a high altitude (7,349 feet), where studies had shown the thinner air could lead to jumping an extra 20cm.

Adding to the mystique of the jump was the fact that at no other point in Beamon's career, that day or otherwise, did he ever surpass 8.33m. Take that 8.90 away from him and he’s just another in a long list of ~8.30 jumpers, but everything came together one day in Mexico city to produce the perfect jump, which many thought would never be surpassed.

As Carl Lewis built a decade long unbeaten streak in the long jump (from 1981-91), he continually peppered the mark, on occasion beating it only to be called for the tiniest of fouls, he just couldn’t seem to actually break it. Lewis even refused to jump at high altitude during his prime, saying that he didn’t want to break the record only for it to have an asterisk.

Lewis would eventually surpass Beamon's mark, but on that night not only would his 8.91m jump be wind assisted and illegal for record breaking purposes, it would be beaten by another ‘perfect jump’.

Mike Powell was a great long jumper, he's probably the 2^nd best long jumper in history, but when I was a kid I didn’t know him from a bar of soap. I’d grown up watching Carl jump, I used to have dreams the night before the school athletics carnival of jumping like Carl, clearing the long jump pit, landing on the grass and breaking my legs, but not caring about my legs being broken because I’d gotten the record breaking jump in and that was all that mattered.

I may have had an issue with priorities.

Too young to be allowed to watch the competition live in the evening, I was able to catch the highlights the next morning, and stalled as long as I could watching the competition while my mother yelled at me that I would miss the bus if I didn't move it. As an eleven year old, to see Powell jump 8.95 and beat Carl Lewis, breaking Beamon's world record in the process, it seemed like the equivalent of watching Da Vinci spend years perfecting the Mona Lisa, and then some guy just stumble over a paint can and it splatter something better onto a canvas.

Actually, no, it was nothing like that. I was eleven.


Let’s take a look at Powell’s 6 jump series that night;
7.85m, 8.54m, 8.29m, Foul, 8.95m, Foul

And now Lewis:
8.68m, Foul, 8.83m, 8.91m, 8.87m, 8.84m

Not quite the great 'back and forth battle' history made it out to be...

Excluding jumps at altitude, there have only been six 8.80cm plus long jumps in history.

Lewis had four of them. In a row. On the same night. And he got beaten.

Talk about bad luck.

If we throw out the wind assisted leaps of both men, the second best jump of Powell's career was only 8.70, a mark Carl exceeded ten times, and Powell surpassed 8.65m just three times. Lewis on the other hand, soared over 8.65m a whopping 22 times:

The graph illustrates just how often Lewis peppered Beamon's (green) mark, and that vertical axis only spans a distance of 30cm, showing how many times Lewis was within about half your keyboard's width of breaking Beamon's record.

So many factors could have led to Lewis getting the record, he was just never lucky enough to get the perfect wind, perfect position on the board and perfect jump all at once. If he put that together at altitude, my thought is he had potential to break the sand at around 9.20m, he just never did, and as you can tell, I’m still not over it...

Three reasons why Sally Pearson will bounce back to win in London.

Last Saturday Sally Pearson, after looking unbeatable all season, suffered a shock loss to American Kellie Wells at the London Diamond League meet.

For some it raised concerns over how she would respond to the defeat and whether she could continue her predicted march toward Olympic gold, while others offered suggestions to help out, ranging from things as simple as Cathy Freeman's advice to not change anything to as bizarre as adopting Michelle Jenneke's pre race routine.

The hurdles is an event fraught with danger, in no other event does the favourite more regularly crash and burn, and that is the nature of having to clear barriers at top speed, you only have to look as far as the 1992 and 2008 Olympic finals for examples.

Obviously, any athlete that clobbers a hurdle in the Olympic final won’t win it, but barring that, I have faith that Sally won’t be beaten to the line.

The faith in Sally is based on three main factors.

1. Her combination of form and experience.

 

Sally has an impressive championship pedigree, with a silver medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympic games, Gold at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and the 2011 Daegu World championship title among a long list of other accolades, but the final in London will likely be stacked full of athletes with impressive pedigrees.

Her main competition includes;

•  Jamaican Brigitte Foster-Hylton, who won the 2009 World Championship, and carries the most experience (she was in the Olympic final way back in Sydney)

•  American Dawn Harper, who beat Sally for the 2008 Olympic gold medal, and was third behind her at the World Championships last year.

•  American Lolo Jones, who was the red hot favourite for gold in 2008 and led the race until she crashed into a hurdle, with Harper coming through for the win and

•  American Kellie Wells, who is still unproven at the major championships, but the only athlete to beat Sally this season.

When we look at these past results in combination with current form, we see where Sally has the edge. As she did last season when she took out the world championship, Sally once again tops the performance list for this season, with a best of 12.40, which right off the bat is a time that none of the three Americans or Foster-Hylton have ever matched.

The time Sally ran to finish second behind Wells on Saturday was 12.59, and that was run in the rain. Jones and Harper haven’t come close to 12.59 yet this season even in good conditions, so even though Harper has shown ability to win big races, Sally has a clear edge over both on current form.

Foster-Hylton ran 12.51 to win the Jamaican trials, while Kelly Wells’ best time of the season (12.54) came earlier on Saturday in the heats where she was beaten by Sally.

So Foster-Hylton and Wells loom as larger threats, and Wells stock no doubt soars on the heels of Saturday’s victory, but she remains inexperienced and unproven at the majors.

Last year in Daegu she came into the meet ranked #2 in the world behind Sally, only to clip a hurdle in the semi final, and then fall in the final (not that it would have mattered, no-one was catching Sally in that race). Foster-Hylton has had an up and down career (mostly up), but she was run out at the world championship semi finals last year when trying to defend her 2009 title. She has found form once again this season though, currently ranked #2 in the world.

That said, Sally leads Foster-Hylton 3-1 when talking head to head results from the last four Olympics or World Championships, and has the three best times of the season, (and 5 of the top 6) so she has better form than anyone coming in.

2. Her confidence and mindset.

One of the things that sets Sally apart from (some) other Aussie athletes is her mindset, she has been quoted as saying that some Aussies are too focused on just making the team, and not focused enough on winning a medal. Sally is heading to London for gold and won’t accept anything less.

The all business, uncompromising attitude is part of what made her successful last season, and

led to her dominating the field in Daegu. She knows what is required now to get the best from herself and remains hungry and motivated for the gold medal.

In an interview with the Sunday Age, she stated;

"There is a confidence from being the best… and you also want to be able to back up what you're portraying. I want to win gold at London and I want everyone else to know that.''

The mental toughness is critical in the hurdles because it can all go so horribly wrong in a blink of an eye. One miss step, one hesitation, and it can all come (literally) crashing down. No-one knows that more than Sally who crashed out of the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games final as a teenager.

It is this mental toughness that has helped her get past that setback in Melbourne, helped her rebound from a back injury that derailed her 2009 world championships campaign, and helped her keep her composure for the hurdles when she was disqualified after winning the final of the 100m flat event at the Delhi Commonwealth Games in 2010.

3. Now you’ve made her angry.

In my mind, the best chance the opposition had of upsetting Sally was to leave her sailing along undefeated leading into the Olympics.

On the list of an athletes potential pitfalls, complacency rides fairly highly. After a dominating victory at last years world championships, and an undefeated run for most of this season, it's possible that Sally could have subconsciously taken her foot off the pedal and just coasted along all Bruce Banner like.

Not now.

Now they get the Hulk.

After the defeat on Saturday, Sally’s usual bubbly personality was gone, she shrugged off reporters and immediately shifted into all business mode, and will likely remain so until the job is done.

If any thought of relaxing at all had been entertained, or any feeling that the medal might be handed over without a fight after Daegu, it’s gone now. Sally won’t leave any stone unturned, as she knows that she has to retain the focus and the mindset to ensure she is at her best on August 7^th.

Because if she is at her best, she won’t be beaten.

The day that I beat Batman… Well sort of (but not really).

Having hung around the sport of track and field for over a decade now, I have at some point lined up against most of the big names in male sprinting over that time period, and by ‘big names’ in track and field, for many of you, that means either ‘guy you have kind of heard of’ or ‘guy you saw run at the Olympics that one time but didn’t know their name’.

For every questionable upset victory I’ve somehow shanked that doesn’t really count, there have been ten times I’ve had the pleasure of admiring just how clean the pair of heels is on one of my idols as they run away from me.

My trail of empty ‘victories’ over notables started back in 2001 when I beat future six time national 100m champion Josh Ross in of all things, the triple jump, and was bookended in April this year when I knocked off London bound 4x400m Olympian Joel Milburn over 200m while he was still on the mend from a hamstring injury.

And so it was that when I faced one of my heroes Daniel Batman back in February 2008, that I technically (but not really) came out ahead.

If you are reading this blog you likely know that Daniel Batman was tragically killed in a car accident in June while he was in Darwin to visit two of his three children. For me the accident was a saddening reminder of the inevitable mortality and numbing shortness of life.

While I raced Batman several times over the years, I only spoke to him a few times, and those exchanges usually either involved wishing him luck out on the warmup track, or congratulating him after he had just destroyed me in a race. Nevertheless, to see a man who was both influential to me and younger than me have his life cut short, was quite confronting.

Batman was arguably Australia’s best all round sprinter, starting out as a 400m specialist, always strong over 200m, and later in his career laying the smack down over 100m. He was an inspiration to me, as a short man running the 400m event. Most 400m runners are tall (well taller than me) and relatively slender, but here was Daniel Batman, all 175cm of him, legs like tree trunks, and somehow able to get those stumps moving fast enough to trounce those who took many less steps to cover the distance.

By the time the NSW State titles rolled around in 2008, he was already transitioning more toward the shorter sprints and running less 400m races, but he ran all three sprints at the championships that year and raced through the Friday night 400m heats. For the final the following night, I had to cut my long jump event short, quickly shake the sand out of my shoes and set up my blocks to line up in one of the most stacked 400m races I’d ever been a part of, with Batman, as well as Olympian Clinton Hill, World Championship rep Kurt Mulcahy, and future Olympian Joel Milburn in the field.

Batty was in a lane outside me, and I got a solid start. As I ran the first bend I noticed something strange… I was keeping up with him, a man who was at the time the 7^th fastest Australian ever over the distance… Something wasn’t right. Sure enough, as we entered the back straight, he pulled up and stopped. Momentarily distracted, I got back into my race and had a good view from my lane as Joel Milburn stormed away in the home straight for a breakthrough victory over Clinton Hill that would foreshadow him making the semi final later that year at the Beijing Olympics.

Technically, a victory over Batman as he failed to finish, but in reality it was a shellacking by Milburn and co. As I returned to the long jump with my lactic haze in a laughable attempt to continue jumping, I realized what had happened when Batty lined up for the 100m final, healthy as a horse. He had obviously decided that his best chance of getting to Beijing lay in the 4x100m relay, and didn’t want to tire himself out by running the entire 400m final right before the 100m. He did however, have to at least start the race, as under IAAF rules if he had pulled out of the 400m final he’d have had to withdraw from the 100m final as well.

It is funny that, when I think of Daniel Batman, this is the memory that comes to mind… Perhaps it is because I have conveniently wiped from my consciousness all the times when he soundly whomped me on the track, or maybe it’s because for 100 metres, I got to run alongside one of the men who eight years earlier at the Sydney Olympics, inspired me to return to a sport I'd given up on after high school.

It has been three weeks now since Daniel Batman was tragically killed, but I for one don’t easily forget those I draw inspiration from, and Batman was certainly that for me. I invite anyone reading who has one, to share a memory of Batty in the comments as a tribute to one of Australia’s best ever sprinters.

The Steffensen/Solomon Situation

On Saturday news broke that John Steffensen was threatening to boycott the 4x400m relay at the Olympics because of the nomination of Steve Solomon in the individual 400m.

Having competed against both sprinters, and knowing many people who train with the two, I witnessed alot of divided opinions, and criticism was handed out in many directions.

Without being able to fit all my rambling, swirling thoughts into a twitter or facebook post, I have put my thoughts on the situation into a blog here instead.

Why Athletics Australia is not to blame.

Criticism was directed at Athletics Australia (AA) by many, led chiefly by John Steffensen. Steffensen's complaint was that AA had moved the goal posts, after previously determining that only athletes with an IAAF 'A' qualifier would be selected for the Olympics, and neither he nor Solomon had reached the 400m individual A standard of 45.30.

It was also stated that the decision rendered the Olympic Trials, (held in early March and won by Steffensen) largely irrelevant.

I'm of the opinion that AA shouldn't be blamed for either of these aspects.

One of the criticisms AA had endured over the years was that they often seemingly tried to take the smallest possible team to major championships. In most instances, AA considers the nomination standard to be the 'A' standard set by the IAAF. As such, achieving an IAAF 'B' qualifying time, often meant little to selectors.

The nomination criteria outlines this philosophy;

"As a general rule Athletics Australia (AA) will only nominate Athletes to the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) for selection in the 2012 Australian Olympic Team who Selectors believe, on the basis of their current results or previous major international results, are likely to finish in the top 16 in their respective event at the 2012 Olympic Games, London."

With this criteria in place, many athletes who only achieved IAAF B qualifying times this season were overlooked on initial selection, including Tamsyn Manou, Josh Ross, Lachlan Renshaw, and both Steffensen and Solomon.

There was however, the following 'developing athlete' provision outlined in the nomination criteria;

"...the Selectors also have the discretion to choose any Athlete for nomination to the AOC who, in their opinion, has the ability to achieve a top 8 position at the 2016 Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro, provided that the Selectors are also of the view that such an Athlete would benefit from the experience of competing in the 2012 Olympic Games, London."

This provision could only allow a maximum of one B standard athlete to be selected in an event, and it was this provision that allowed the selection of Melissa Breen, who narrowly missed the IAAF A qualifying time in the 100m by 0.002 of a second, and apparently also now after his 45.52 bronze medal run at this weeks IAAF World Junior Championships, the 19 year old Solomon.

AA also extended the closing date for qualifying performances for the London games (twice) after criticism received in the Genevieve LaCaze situation, in an effort to give athletes every chance to qualify.

So while it was, as Steffensen assessed 'moving the goal posts', the movement helped result in the biggest Olympic athletics team since the 2000 Sydney Games, and for the additional flexibility and in a sport where athletes 'on the cusp' have often left track and field in frustration after not being given a shot, a willingness to finally have a policy giving more options of inclusion rather than flat out exclusion, AA should be applauded.

One of the other criticisms of AA over the years was a failure to listen to athletes. This year, at the request of athletes and their coaches, the Olympic Trials were separated from the national championships, and moved forward to early March, to allow athletes to 'get them over with' and then resume their training blocks leading into the Olympics.

The problem with this was, it didn't work out very well for many athletes, with only 17 athletes added to the Olympic team after the trials, the rest were forced to compete on for the next several months in their attempts to run qualifying times for the team.

Other (northern hemisphere) countries often run their trials mere weeks before the major championship, which usually leads to those athletes who qualify for the team being in peak condition at the right time. For Australia, having Olympic trials so early has often meant that the summer peak could not be surpassed (or even matched) by the time the championship came around, it also left a very large amount of time for injury to strike, which was one of the things that plagued Steffensen.

So here Athletics Australia have demonstrated a willingness to include more athletes for selection, and to listen to the athletes and adhere to their requests, even if it didn't work out very well for the parties involved, AA shouldn't be criticised for moving away from a more hardline stance in the past.

Why Steffensen has a legitimate gripe

 

He won the Olympic trials, and Solomon came third.

At the crux of the argument, is the very real fact that in March, Steffensen was in better shape, and he had shown the ability to get himself into shape when he was told it counted.

Only now, it's been revealed that seemingly the 'developing athlete' provision can carry more weight than victory at the Olympic trials.

If athletes had known that at the time, many (not just Steffensen) could have focused more on their training base for longer, which could have led them to reaching better form later in the year, closer to the championships. You could make the argument that for some athletes, competing at the Olympic trials actually hurt either their chances of getting to London, or how they will perform in London, and there is something terribly wrong with that.

So Steffensen has a legitimate gripe with the decision, and for an athlete who through injury and unlucky timing has never been able to secure an individual berth in the Olympics for Australia, to see it given to someone he beat at the trials back in March, has to sting. For an aging athlete who has been near the top of the sport in this country for the better part of a decade, punishing his body in training for years and not always getting the results or accolades he felt his effort and dedication warranted, it was perceived as just another kick in the teeth in a sport that often simply cares about nothing but the result.

Why Solomon should run

 

As a somehwat biased aging athlete myself, I don't totally agree with the 'developing athlete' provision in the AA selection criteria.

I believe athletes should be selected because they have run the fastest in the qualifying period, not because they are deemed through some discretionary crystal ball that they may do big things down the track. Predictions like that are very hit and miss, for every medalist at World Junior championships who goes on to big things in senior competition, theres another who completely falls off the map.

If I'd been overlooked for the 2012 Oceania Championships selection in favour of someone younger who hadn't run as fast as me in the name of athlete development, I'd have been quite upset... Obviously however, if my place went to someone who had run a faster time, then thats pretty black and white.

With Solomon, he should run at the Olympics because he is faster this season, and much faster right now, right before the Olympics. He has twice this season topped Steffensen's seasonal best time of 45.61, and his most recent run on Friday of 45.52, was almost a second faster than Steffensen's most recent run this week of 46.45.

Had the situation been reversed, and Steffensen this week run 45.5, and Solomon run 46.5, I'd be calling for Steffensen to be given a shot instead and for Solomon to wait it out four more years, but unfortunately for Steffensen he hasn't really recovered the early season form he had prior to injuring his hamstring at the Stawell gift.

Solomon, who had his own hamstring issues leading into the Olympic trials, has since built throughout the season running PBs in big races, first at the National Championships final in April, and now at the World Junior Championships final this week.

So as the form athlete, with the better time this year, and with only one spot available, it's my opinion that we should let Solo run.