Vertical Jump tiebreakers...

[jhc68]

Gotta feel for Vlasic, she was perfect until the ultimate height and then had a second attempt clearance. Hellebaut made attempts at all the same heights and had 3 misses along the way but cleared the ultimate height on a first clearance.

Analysing these situations by my own less-than-bright lights, it seems that Vlasic had the better overall performance on the day (yeah, I know Hellebaut passed her last two attempts).

Hellebaut's 3 misses at lower height are cancelled, and Vlasic's otherwise perfect sequence are cancelled by one first clearance. I high jumped for a decade of my life and though I understood the letter of the law, I never understood the logic of it.

[Per Andersen]

Re: Vertical Jump tiebreakers...

Gotta feel for Vlasic, she was perfect until the ultimate height and then had a second attempt clearance. Hellebaut made attempts at all the same heights and had 3 misses along the way but cleared the ultimate height on a first clearance.

Analysing these situations by my own less-than-bright lights, it seems that Vlasic had the better overall performance on the day (yeah, I know Hellebaut passed her last two attempts).

Hellebaut's 3 misses at lower height are cancelled, and Vlasic's otherwise perfect sequence are cancelled by one first clearance. I high jumped for a decade of my life and though I understood the letter of the law, I never understood the logic of it.

I know, I know. Felt exactly the same way.

[jhc68]

So it's true, then.
Great minds thnk alike.

[marknhj]

So it's true, then.
Great minds thnk alike.

No they don't, I disagree entirely!

It's only the highest clearance that counts and in a tie the athlete that makes the most difficult jump of the competition first deserves the victory. The lower heights only serve to move the athlete up to the winning ones. Using clearance/misses at the lower heights would be close to adding style points to the equation. A slightly ridiculous analogy would be who was leading at 25, 50 and 75m in the 100m? Not the eventual winner? Who cares...

[Mellow Johnny]

So it's true, then.
Great minds thnk alike.

No they don't, I disagree entirely!

It's only the highest clearance that counts and in a tie the athlete that makes the most difficult jump of the competition first deserves the victory. The lower heights only serve to move the athlete up to the winning ones. Using clearance/misses at the lower heights would be close to adding style points to the equation. A slightly ridiculous analogy would be who was leading at 25, 50 and 75m in the 100m? Not the eventual winner? Who cares...

While I agree with you that misses at the winning/highest height is what should be used to break the tie, comparing a field event to a running event is more than a "slightly" ridiculous analogy.

[marknhj]

So it's true, then.
Great minds thnk alike.

No they don't, I disagree entirely!

It's only the highest clearance that counts and in a tie the athlete that makes the most difficult jump of the competition first deserves the victory. The lower heights only serve to move the athlete up to the winning ones. Using clearance/misses at the lower heights would be close to adding style points to the equation. A slightly ridiculous analogy would be who was leading at 25, 50 and 75m in the 100m? Not the eventual winner? Who cares...

While I agree with you that misses at the winning/highest height is what should be used to break the tie, comparing a field event to a running event with more than a "slightly" ridiculous analogy.

After trying to interpret what you wrote I think you're agreeing with my self-analysis. Thank you.

But the principle of where athletes are positioned prior to the finish remains sound (actually, now that I think of it, I'll change "slightly ridiculous" to ""somewhat stretched")

[Mellow Johnny]

After trying to interpret what you wrote I think you're agreeing with my self-analysis. Thank you.

But the principle of where athletes are positioned prior to the finish remains sound (actually, now that I think of it, I'll change "slightly ridiculous" to ""somewhat stretched")

Fixed it now, thanks. Yeah, I was having a little fun since you admitted it was "slightly ridiculous." And actually, it does help prove your point about how position before the finish line/finishing height really is ridiculous. I was just saying it makes more sense certainly in field events than in a running event (don't they still use second furthest throw to break a throwing event tie or not?)

[marknhj]

After trying to interpret what you wrote I think you're agreeing with my self-analysis. Thank you.

But the principle of where athletes are positioned prior to the finish remains sound (actually, now that I think of it, I'll change "slightly ridiculous" to ""somewhat stretched")

Fixed it now, thanks. Yeah, I was having a little fun since you admitted it was "slightly ridiculous."

No worries, and I neglected to put a after my Thank you. My only excuse is sleep deprivation, a consequence of operating on 4 hours of sleep since the athletics began. I'm actually relieved it's over...lol

[gh]

Mark: I have no feel for what most jumpers think. Do I take it from your comments yuou don't like the current system of tiebreaking? If not, what would be an improvement?+

[imaginative]

The OG high jump thread contains a number of posts on this topic. One in
particular struck me as insightful, even brilliant:

http://mb.trackandfieldnews.com/discuss ... 100#491401

[dukehjsteve]

The current system is probably the best possible. However, maybe.....

It may not be practical, but having a jump off would be the best. Use the same format as current jump offs ( 4th try, then one-shot at subsequent heights until a make-miss pair emerges. And the "penalty" for any and all misses prior to the jump off would be fatigue. Also, the jumper with the fewest total misses gets to select the order for the jump off. If they are tied, flip a coin to determine the order of jumping. This entire procedure would also work if there were more than 2 jumpers as well.

What does anyone else think ?

[jhc68]

I don't have a practical alternative and I guess the current system is the most efficient one. I fully understand Mark's point of view and respect his judgment, but I simply do not agree, and I still do not think the current rule is any more logical or fair than counting all misses or counting total attempts. In horizontal jumps a tie is broken by looking at next best marks (i.e., who had the better overall performance for the day) and if we apply the same criterion to vertical jumps then failures at lower heights would indicate an inferior performance for the day.

[Kurt Francis]

The current system is probably the best possible. However, maybe.....

It may not be practical, but having a jump off would be the best. Use the same format as current jump offs ( 4th try, then one-shot at subsequent heights until a make-miss pair emerges. And the "penalty" for any and all misses prior to the jump off would be fatigue. Also, the jumper with the fewest total misses gets to select the order for the jump off. If they are tied, flip a coin to determine the order of jumping. This entire procedure would also work if there were more than 2 jumpers as well.

What does anyone else think ?

I like your idea here. I think it would be an equitable alternative. I don't know about "better", but I think at least equitable. It doesn't penalize the athlete just because it took more attempts to reach the same last height cleared. In essence, anyone clearing the same height with the same number of attempts at that height would be eligible for a jump-off? Am I reading this correctly? If so, I'd have no problem with it.

[dukehjsteve]

The current system is probably the best possible. However, maybe.....

It may not be practical, but having a jump off would be the best. Use the same format as current jump offs ( 4th try, then one-shot at subsequent heights until a make-miss pair emerges. And the "penalty" for any and all misses prior to the jump off would be fatigue. Also, the jumper with the fewest total misses gets to select the order for the jump off. If they are tied, flip a coin to determine the order of jumping. This entire procedure would also work if there were more than 2 jumpers as well.

What does anyone else think ?

I like your idea here. I think it would be an equitable alternative. I don't know about "better", but I think at least equitable. It doesn't penalize the athlete just because it took more attempts to reach the same last height cleared. In essence, anyone clearing the same height with the same number of attempts at that height would be eligible for a jump-off? Am I reading this correctly? If so, I'd have no problem with it.

In my scenario, prior misses/attemps mean nothing. You both clear the same final height, be it on 1st attempt, 3rd attempt, no prior misses at lower heights or 5 misses at lower heights, so what ? You go to a jump off. You are "tied" for highest jump, aren't you ? So let's keep jumping until someone misses and someone makes it. End of "tie."

[Per Andersen]

I think the current system is the best and I would not change a thing. Especially after they got rid of the "number of jumps" criterium.

But I sometimes do feel for jumpers like Vlasic yesterday and Rybakov last year who are perfect up to the last height and then get beaten on the same height by jumpers who have several earlier misses and sometimes are close to elimination (Thomas last year).