ultimate goal is swampfox
You make me sound a little supercilious there. It was a comment based on still thinking of 'Wyatt' = 'injured', since I haven't seen you since November. I think you understood that, but just for the record's sake.
An obvious goal would be to win the US champs in November, no?
I think that's a lot more realistic than a WOC A-final would have been - I don't consider that to be anywhere close to within my reach (one reason I don't bother going to Australia for their selection trials - the other is that I wouldn't be close to making their team anyway). So since you're running about my speed right now, either I am wrong, or else you are improving even more rapidly than I think.
Must be tough to be done down by a selection process you helped design... particularly when said selection process knocked out the winners of the sprint and the long at the trials, so it might be said to have drawbacks. One of the reasons I wouldn't be close to making the Australian team is that their process in this kind of situation, while less formal, seems to work in reverse (select the guy who won the race and had two disasters, rather than the guy who came 3rd every day, on the principle that the first guy is more likely to make a final at WOC if he comes good on the day.)
Actually, the Swampfox measuring stick may become less useful soon - I believe he'll be short ranking races on Blue once last year's Team Trials roll out of the rankings.
A thought on the US selection process - recent sprint results in the US may demonstrate the need for a process to take sprint specialists to WOC even if they can't run well enough in the other disciplines to qualify based on the best 3 of 4 scores.
I agree. It seems silly to knock out a sprinter because they don't have the endurance to run 13km. Likewise it seems silly to knock out someone who does when they don't have the speed to win a sprint. To be honest, for long-term development, it would be better to select the sprinter anyway. (I don't think this necessarily applies this year: the winner of the sprint needs to show that it's not a one-off before getting selected.)
Maybe, once there are enough ranked sprints in the US, the solution is to divide the ranking score into three parts: sprint races, middle races, and long races. Then combine the trials race with the ranking in that discipline, to get a rank order in each discipline (eg by the average the two scores). Then leave it up to the discretion of selectors how many to take, provided that they select from the top down on each list.
eg:
each runner has three discipline scores.
runner A: sprint 100 / middle 94 / long 70
runner B: sprint 50 / middle 75 / long 110
runner C: 90 / 90 / 89
runner D: 91/ 87 / 90
runner E: 88 / 91 / 93
Suppose we are selecting a team of three. Then within each discipline, the ranks are:
sprint: A > D > C > E > B.
middle: A > E > C > D > B
long: B > E > D > C > A.
Then the possible teams are:
A, B, D: with A and D to run the sprint, A to run the middle, and B to run the long.
A, B, E, with A to run the sprint and middle, B to run the long, and E to run one or more of the middle and the long.
Selectors' discretion which of these occurs.
Adding a little discretion like this wouldn't seem unduly harmful.
The analog to the current system would likely select C, D, E here.
I know Greg agrees with this and there is a lot to recommend it.
Frankly, and trying to be as positive as possible, Sandstrom and Schirm, IMO, have the best potential to make an A final as anybody, and they aren't actually on the team. Not something that can be rectified this year, but worth mulling over.
Congrats on the races Wyatt.
Has the US ever gone with a "You win and you're in" policy for the 3 disciplines before, basically if you win one race, you're in regardless of how you do in the others. I'd push for more of a modified version in which if you win one, and then place top something (5?) in another race you're in. Cross-country skiing Canada went with a win and you're in a few years ago for world champs and a friend I know had his only good race of the entire year at the Sprint qualifier and won it, then had an awful rest of year and world champs.
That is why I wouldn't want to do that. Averaging the trials with the ranking score for that discipline seems like a happy medium.
Obviously, it's hard to design a single mechanical process that will produce a result everyone will agree is reasonable in all situations. I certainly think there are imaginable and not even terribly unlikely situations in which averaging the entries in a discipline-specific rankings list and the results of a single race in that discipline wouldn't necessarily bring the person with the best chance of producing an excellent result to the top of the selection list.
For sprint, perhaps the best thing to do would be to examine the current distribution of ranking points from sanctioned sprints in the past year (or whatever period), decide what points score in an individual race constitutes an exceptional sprint performance relative to elite Americans, set a floor for the overall sprint ranking over the period to ensure that people are somewhat consistent, and say anyone who runs at least n sanctioned sprint races and produces at least m exceptional performances during the period while exceeding the floor in their overall ranking is eligible to petition to be on the team. Obviously, a proposal that depends on there being sufficient sanctioned sprints. I'll wait for people to point out other flaws.
As for a goal--the US Relay Champs should be at the top.
The wolves are hungry, but we are king of the hill.
Some goals I pondered.
Win Sprint Series points (hard)
Win US Champs (hard) (but agreed, probably a bit easier than A-final)
Win DVOA rankings (moderate-hard)
I think the latter two are quite compatible, although I could get nipped by Clem again in both of those ;) (Although if Clem's the only one to beat me at the US Champs, that wouldn't be so bad.) The Sprint Series goal would perhaps address a weakness of speed, something I'll need to do in the next few years or not at all.
Probably the latter two, with emphasis on the US Champs goal, with the DVOA ranking coming almost as a by-product of the first goal.
One training change TBD shortly is get more serious about doing intervals with other people (there are 2-3 running club interval sessions in driving distance.)
I hope you are being sarcastic when you say winning the US Champs is "a bit easier" than making an A-final at WOC.
Maybe, but I'm sure he meant that winning the DVOA rankings is very-hard.
Well, I hope to make it harder to win the US champs than the US team trials, at any rate... :)
I figure that feet just gave you an excellent goal opportunity in the above post, but if I were to choose a goal at this stage I might seek to focus on the sprint ( since you pointed it out as a weakness of this year's trials). To lead the sprint series rankings is awfully dependent on going to all the high scoring sprints so instead maybe try for some goal at the sprint series finals.
too bad that you can't have a goal for a Jukola leg
He could have had a goal for a Jukola leg but that opportunity slipped by...
So who exactly is running on the DVOA Jukola team??
Sweet!
It's a bit of a departure from the originally proposed team, though! Has Chris Gross officially come out of retirement? And why isn't Wyatt running?
Chris was out for a couple of A-meets recently and even was at TT.
Angelica's side-effect :)
This discussion thread is closed.