Qualifying By Time Only (And Empty Lanes)

[Donley]

I see that the eastern mens regional 400 has six heats with six runners each and the qualifiers are the 8 fastest times. I do not understand why you would do this. Qualifying purely by time in a race like the 400 seems crazy to me. Why not heat winners plus 2 fastest times. Or maybe use almost all the lanes and have only 5 heats. I have seen a tendency at meets to only have 5 or 6 people in a heat. This to me is bad for fans and athletes alike.

[ChileaN-DistancE-RunneR]

Re: Qualifying By Time Only (And Empty Lanes)

Simple how do u win a race? by running the faster time right. SO wouldn't it make sense to qualify the faster or better athletes. What if the top runners were in the same heat. Well then u would have a boring final. Let the faster and better athletes qualify. How do u do that let the times answer that.

[Donley]

Re: Qualifying By Time Only (And Empty Lanes)

>Simple how do u win a race? by running the faster
>time right. SO wouldn't it make sense to qualify
>the faster or better athletes. What if the top
>runners were in the same heat. Well then u would
>have a boring final. Let the faster and better
>athletes qualify. How do u do that let the times
>answer that.

The runners are already seeded by qualifying time to try to make it highly unlikely that more than 2 or 3 of the best runners ever end up in the same heat. All this does is force athletes who may be running multiple races to run close to all out when in some cases it is completely unnecessary.

[gh]

Re: Qualifying By Time Only (And Empty Lanes)

The huge problem with time-based qualifying (in the 100, 200 and 110H) and flights-based jumping (LJ and TJ) is how the wind can make things a travesty.

Strong tailwind for heat 1 and all the guys run 10.20 or better, including the guy with the 10.30 qualifier. Wind reverses for heat 2 and everybody runs 10.25 or slower, including a 10.15. The numbers are extreme, but done so on purpose to make clear the point. And it does happen, even "frequently."

[dl]

Re: Qualifying By Time Only (And Empty Lanes)

They're not using lanes 1 and 2 because they're "slow." Tell that to Angelo Taylor!

[Guest]

Re: Qualifying By Time ( Finals by time worse?)

Message board participants have lamented qualifying by time. Is not final placing by time, done in big invitational meets and parts of NCAA regionals, just as bad and maybe worse?