High Jump Injustice at the Olympic Trials?

[NotDutra5]

If it was we'd be all Mr. Blue Sky in this thread instead of, "dude, Don't Bring Me Down."

A positive attitude never hurt!

[Flumpy]

Theoretically, if there were 32 athletes with the standard (after considering 3 per country) in an event with field size 32, nobody could qualify via world rankings in that event, not even the #1 ranker (of course, in practice the #1 ranker is almost certain to have the standard anyway).

Something like this has happened in the wTJ. Britain's Naomi Ogbeta is ranked 17th on World Rankings but with a best of 14.29m. 3cm off the qualifying.

She ranks 36th on Road To Tokyo because 35 women achieved the qualifying mark. All 35 ahead of her go and no one claimed a spot through the world rankings.

To the best of my knowledge she has not yet set up a Go Fund Me to cover legal expenses

[booond]

Something like this has happened in the wTJ. Britain's Naomi Ogbeta is ranked 17th on World Rankings but with a best of 14.29m. 3cm off the qualifying.

She ranks 36th on Road To Tokyo because 35 women achieved the qualifying mark. All 35 ahead of her go and no one claimed a spot through the world rankings.

To the best of my knowledge she has not yet set up a Go Fund Me to cover legal expenses

In some respect she illustrates the problem.

She is the British Champion and the British championship is rated a B.

She jumped 14.04 to win.
Second place jumped 13.25

13.25 would place tied for 6th in...wait for it... the Southeast Conference Meet which was ranked an F.

This is why events need to be ranked separately. And, yes, college meets would be harder to rank as there is a constant fluctuation of talent.

The OT was ranked a B, too, and 13.25 would've finished 11th.

[Trickstat]

ELO actually had an album called 'A New World Record'!

[bambam1729]

But you you still haven't explained what those differences are. How were these 3 athletes treated/rated/ranked differently?

The Elo rating system is actually a great system to rank head-to-head matchups and fairly easy to understand. It may be complicated to implement in T&F with so many athletes to track.

[bambam1729]

The Elo rating system is actually a great system to rank head-to-head matchups and fairly easy to understand. It may be complicated to implement in T&F with so many athletes to track.

Here's the basic idea of the Elo system. In any head-to-head matchup, if I start with a rating of 1,000 and you start with a rating of 1,100, and I beat you, then my rating goes up and your rating goes down, because you're supposed to beat me. But if you beat me, my rating also goes down, but not so much, since I'm supposed to lose to you.

[AS]

Everyone seems to be ignoring a clear agenda with the Rankings (which IAAF was up front about at the time of their launch): that they want to encourage/force athletes into the main circuit meetings (i.e. DL and Continental Tour). The (flawed) logic was that somehow the awarding of meeting points would lead the very best athletes into more head-to-heads.

Unfortunately, it doesn't achieve that end, as the only part of the points distribution that really matters is the qualification cut-offs we're seeing here i.e. no superstar is missing selection because they skipped a DL or two, but journey(wo)men are because they haven't been on the (mainly European) circuit or appearing at hardly equivalent 2nd and 3rd tier champs.

It is somewhat amusing that so many USAians are suddenly aware of these quirks, given many of us pointed this out back in the day.

And, to be clear, athletes from outside Europe and USA have even less access to the big points meetings.

[Atticus]

Here's the basic idea of the Elo system. In any head-to-head matchup, if I start with a rating of 1,000 and you start with a rating of 1,100, and I beat you, then my rating goes up and your rating goes down, because you're supposed to beat me. But if you beat me, my rating also goes down, but not so much, since I'm supposed to lose to you.

I guess what they are trying to do in D1 college football, but the outcome is often farcical.

[18.99s]

The Elo rating system is actually a great system to rank head-to-head matchups and fairly easy to understand. It may be complicated to implement in T&F with so many athletes to track.

Not that hard for a computer though. If there are 8 in a race, treat it as 28 head-to-head matchups and run the Elo algorithm on those pairings (discarding the rabbits, unless they finish the race).

[Conor Dary]

Everyone seems to be ignoring a clear agenda with the Rankings (which IAAF was up front about at the time of their launch): that they want to encourage/force athletes into the main circuit meetings (i.e. DL and Continental Tour). The (flawed) logic was that somehow the awarding of meeting points would lead the very best athletes into more head-to-heads..

I've pointed that out a few times...

[ATK]

And, to be clear, athletes from outside Europe and USA have even less access to the big points meetings.

I mean, do we expect any less from a governing body based out of a city-state on the French Rivera?

[Tuariki]

With so many influencing factors - altitude, wind, temperature, track quality, quality of competitors, quality of the event, country self interest- I don't think that it is possible to design a system that is fair to all; elo or no elo.

[Merner521]

With so many influencing factors - altitude, wind, temperature, track quality, quality of competitors, quality of the event, country self interest- I don't think that it is possible to design a system that is fair to all; elo or no elo.

No standards, no rankings. Just qualification through national and area championships prior to the games. Maybe some thoughtfully selected wild cars criteria as well.

[Steele]

I wasn't aware that people were ducking the DL meets. On the contrary, aren't most athletes and their agents jockeying to get a spot on the starting line of DL meets? Being in a DL meet is a win all the way around. Good competition, likely fast times/high marks, sponsor exposure, potential open door into other meets. Can the rest of the world help it if the majority of the meets are in Europe? In the end it comes down to money, as usual.

It's World Athletics, right? If they can't get more meets held around the world (I get it, $$), then they need to find a better way of getting athletes to Europe. Otherwise it's Euro Athletics with some visitors.

[El Toro]

I wasn't aware that people were ducking the DL meets. On the contrary, aren't most athletes and their agents jockeying to get a spot on the starting line of DL meets? Being in a DL meet is a win all the way around. Good competition, likely fast times/high marks, sponsor exposure, potential open door into other meets. Can the rest of the world help it if the majority of the meets are in Europe? In the end it comes down to money, as usual.

It's World Athletics, right? If they can't get more meets held around the world (I get it, $$), then they need to find a better way of getting athletes to Europe. Otherwise it's Euro Athletics with some visitors.

If the USA wants its athletes to be able to stay home and still earn bonus points then just stump up the cash and get more high level competitions in the USA.

It only appears Euro-centric because Euro countries invest more in the international level of the sport.

There is nothing to stop any non-Euro country from getting more meets, just look at the number of competitions in Asia compared to 20 years ago.