Because it seems to be becoming more and more prevalent, especially at these championships, and, frankly, I absolutely hate them! I fail to see any real reason for it to be honest. Ok, they want to encourage a few fastest losers to go through, but take the women's 200m tomorrow- there are 6 heats, and there are 16 women overall who have run inside 23 seconds this year, pretty evenly distributed amongst the heats. So why not just first 2 and fastest 4? Instead, we have the top 3 and 6 fastest leaving us with the problem of three semis which could be affected by wind (remember Helsinki when the obviously inferior Jenny Kallur made the final over Susanna thanks to a change in wind direction?) The 100m never seems to have to go to three semis, why do the longer events (and the hurdles- particularly the women's- seem to be prone to this too)!?
For the longer events, it all comes down to the tenor of the race, so gone are the tactics one would usually employ in the 800m, and it comes down to the time the winner chooses to run...
The reason I bring this up is simple- I've never heard ANYONE on here actually being an advocate of it, so why do they still bother? Do the athletes actually like the system? The only advantage I can see is that more people get a second race at the games, which is obviously for the good of developing athletes, but the top athletes must hate what makes things, for all intents and purposes, a lottery...
For the longer events, it all comes down to the tenor of the race, so gone are the tactics one would usually employ in the 800m, and it comes down to the time the winner chooses to run...
The reason I bring this up is simple- I've never heard ANYONE on here actually being an advocate of it, so why do they still bother? Do the athletes actually like the system? The only advantage I can see is that more people get a second race at the games, which is obviously for the good of developing athletes, but the top athletes must hate what makes things, for all intents and purposes, a lottery...
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