USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

[polevaultpower]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

Title IX applies to any entity receiving "federal financial assistance".

I googled and it appears that the USOC does not accept any federal funds (and I assume USATF isn't!)



To be clear, my beef with the men's pole vault at USA Indoors is not per se with the fact that they took vaulters below the qualifying mark. Their guidelines do say that they may take athletes close to qualifying. My issue is specifically with the following things:
- On Saturday, these athletes were listed as NOT QUALIFIED. Now suddenly they are. If they had bought plane tickets in advance, they probably canceled them!
- Accepting one athlete at 5.35 and not the other three.
- The lack of consistency between what happens with the men and what happens with the women. If you're going to take 5 unqualified men, and go from a field of 8 to 13 (going 15cm below the standard), how is it fair to the ONE unqualified women to not take her, when she was only 10cm off the standard, and there are only 9 women in the event.

I know why these things happen... it's just disappointing. I thought maybe with Doug Logan as CEO and Stephanie Hightower as president, that we would see some actual change.

[Mighty Favog]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

Title IX applies to any entity receiving "federal financial assistance".

[polevaultpower]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

Title IX has no effect here. It applies only to educational institutions.

OK thanks. I wasn't paying enough attention in the two sports law classes I have taken (and was too lazy to google it).

[gm]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

Title IX has no effect here. It applies only to educational institutions.

[MJR]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

Totally agree w/ Becca here. Chaplin does WTF he wants to, at his own whim & with little sense to it. Good thing he has no say at all on entries for the Walks, though.

[polevaultpower]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

we have 30 girls entered in the PV, several with 5'0" PRs and one with an 11'6" PR, How long will this take? :wink:

If the bar is going 6 inches at a time, over 3 hours.

It was kind of a trick question, cuz we don't have 6 hours for boys and girls, so we're going up a FOOT at a time for the first 4 heights.

Good choice! More meets need to do that. It's good to give beginners a chance to make some bars, but they don't necessarily deserve equal time as the more advanced athletes (assuming this is an invite).

[polevaultpower]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

Does Title IX ever come into play? I don't have time to count all the entries, but it seems like there are more men than women. Let's suppose the standards are producing a similar number of qualifiers for men and women, but the decision maker for the men is allowing several unqualified athletes in each event while the decision maker for the women is not. Multiplied over the many events we have, it could be a fairly significant difference...

I'm not saying that's necessarily happening on a big enough scale to matter, but I can say that almost every year the women's pole vault field has been smaller than the men's, it's not like this year is a fluke.

[timetogo]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

The problem is with athletes trying to plan travel and the associated costs. My point has always been to have an absolute mark and then the addendum that the top 10 will automatically get in if their is not enough over the automatic mark. This is similar to what most conferences and essentially what NCAA indoors is. That way if you hit the auto you can buy your ticket and get the best deal possible, and if you are on the bubble you will still be happy to just get the chance. For reasons of flexibility and subjectivity John has been non-committal on this stance. He basically wants to preserve his ability to let in whoever he sees fit. I guess you can't really blame him on the Hysong issue as ultimately we need to sell the sport/event, and Hysong will sell it better than the athlete who I coach that has jumped 5.35. I do believe that Indoors should be used as more of an elite developmental meet though and would like to see some of the fields expanded a bit and get the young athletes a chance to taste this competition/environment.

[Marlow]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

we have 30 girls entered in the PV, several with 5'0" PRs and one with an 11'6" PR, How long will this take? :wink:

If the bar is going 6 inches at a time, over 3 hours.

It was kind of a trick question, cuz we don't have 6 hours for boys and girls, so we're going up a FOOT at a time for the first 4 heights.

[Dave]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

I am guessing that this has been a pretty bleak year for PV in the US. In order to attract enough competitors, they have had to expand the qualifying standards to get a full slate of competitors. Normally you use qualifying standards to keep people out. In this case, we have relatively few people who have achieved those standards the rules were relaxed.

Bull. This happens every year on the men's side. 8 competitors is more than enough to produce a quality competition and select the team for world indoors. The women have 9 competitors and the men could have had 9 by accepting the one athlete who was off by 1cm. Instead they dropped down 15 cm and accepted one athlete with 5.35 and rejected the other 3 with the exact same mark!

I know _why_ it happens, or more specifically _who_ makes it happen. I just want to know why they bother pretending to have standards. Why don't they just say "anyone who feels like it should enter, and if John Chaplin feels like you should get in, you will."

What's the point in having rules and standards if you're not going to follow them?

It looked like they were trying to get some known athletes in the meet in order to promote it. That may speak to your point about John Chaplin admitting people. It probably helps to sell seats to say that you have X Olympic Gold Medalists in the competition even though some of them are far from their prime.

[polevaultpower]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

A field of 8 or 9 is good... as long as you don't start the bar too high, the crowd will see a good number of jumps, but without it being a marathon session. Everyone should make a height

Not to hi-jack the thread, but, just as interesting aside, in our meet this Friday, we have 30 girls entered in the PV, several with 5'0" PRs and one with an 11'6" PR, How long will this take? :wink:

If the bar is going 6 inches at a time, over 3 hours. Probably more since HS meets give a run through for everyone who passes 3 heights, which is probably most of your field. But fortunately, the bar goes up real easy for heights under 10', so with a good pit crew and kids who are paying attention, you can crank them through... but this early in the season, you might have a lot of clueless kids... oh yeah and then there's always the joy of waiting 15 minutes or whatever for kids who are running another event when it's their turn... yeah have fun with that.

[polevaultpower]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

In fact, doing a little research, the indoor MPV standard has been 5.50 for a long time, but it is rarely enforced... 2005 they did take two lower athletes, but that year there were only 6 qualified, and only 2 non-qualified entered. 2006 they took two non-qualified athletes as well. 2007 they didn't. 2008 and 2009 they took as low as 5.20! And now this year they took one 5.35 athlete and not 3 others.

Why not just pick a field size and say the top howevermany athletes entered will get in? The problem is that it is not consistent from year to year. Very few of these athletes live close enough to Albuquerque to drive there, so buying plane tickets and such takes some planning. Do you buy the plane ticket and hope that John Chaplin is feeling generous this year? Or that he likes someone who entered with a lower mark than you? Or do you hold off and risk paying big bucks by waiting until a week before the meet to buy a ticket?

This isn't just a problem with the pole vault and it isn't just a problem with indoor nationals. I have consistently heard complaints about this from many event groups for years now. Everyone knows this is how it is... so why not just write the qualifying standards in a way that reflects reality?

[Marlow]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

A field of 8 or 9 is good... as long as you don't start the bar too high, the crowd will see a good number of jumps, but without it being a marathon session. Everyone should make a height

Not to hi-jack the thread, but, just as interesting aside, in our meet this Friday, we have 30 girls entered in the PV, several with 5'0" PRs and one with an 11'6" PR, How long will this take? :wink:

[polevaultpower]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

I am guessing that this has been a pretty bleak year for PV in the US. In order to attract enough competitors, they have had to expand the qualifying standards to get a full slate of competitors. Normally you use qualifying standards to keep people out. In this case, we have relatively few people who have achieved those standards the rules were relaxed.

Bull. This happens every year on the men's side. 8 competitors is more than enough to produce a quality competition and select the team for world indoors. The women have 9 competitors and the men could have had 9 by accepting the one athlete who was off by 1cm. Instead they dropped down 15 cm and accepted one athlete with 5.35 and rejected the other 3 with the exact same mark!

I know _why_ it happens, or more specifically _who_ makes it happen. I just want to know why they bother pretending to have standards. Why don't they just say "anyone who feels like it should enter, and if John Chaplin feels like you should get in, you will."

What's the point in having rules and standards if you're not going to follow them?

[Dave]

Re: USATF Indoors - Why have qualifying standards at all?

I am guessing that this has been a pretty bleak year for PV in the US. In order to attract enough competitors, they have had to expand the qualifying standards to get a full slate of competitors. Normally you use qualifying standards to keep people out. In this case, we have relatively few people who have achieved those standards the rules were relaxed.