400m World Championships
I was just looking through the start lists for the 400m at the World Track and Field Championships being held in Helsinki where I noticed some interesting entries:
Athlete Country 2005 Personal Battistel Florent MON 49.59 49.59 Martini Glauco SMR 50.86 50.86 Gandéga Boubou MTN 49.52 49.52
Notice anything? I’ll give you a hint: my personal best in the 400m is 49.74, and I am probably best described as a very competitive NCAA Division III athlete. This means that professional level, world class events are probably not in my future (unless of course my name is Andrew Rock, which it is not). However, my time would put me right in the middle of these three supposed “world class” 400m runners.
Obviously I understand why these athletes with clearly very good, but definitely not elite level times are able to compete at the world championships. They respectively hail from the enormous countries of Monaco, San Marino, and Mauritania. So therefore in the hopes of representing as many miniscule countries as possible, the IAAF apparently accepted these three entries to diversify the pool of athletes and create as great an international flavor as possible. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but it also locks out more qualified athletes from the competition. There are hundreds, if not thousands of athletes from other countries that have superior times then the three mentioned above including some from such powerhouse countries like the USA which could even contend for a medal. In all realistic possibilities, we all know that none of the above athletes have even a remote chance of making it to the second round, never mind medaling. Additionally, consider the populations of the above mentioned countries: Monaco: 32,409, San Marino: 28,880, Mauritania: 3,086,859. By comparison, the small town that I live in has about 18,000 people. It seems ludicrous that both Monaco and San Marino should be represented in a competition that has a field of only about 50 or so athletes.
I am not suggesting that quotas or whatever mandated requirements are used to diversify the representation of nations be abandoned. Instead, I think it is more reasonable to have blocks of nations considered on the basis of population. Thus, for example, Monaco and San Marino could be designated in the same block of nations that all have a population under a certain limit. Then a certain quota of athletes could be taken from these nations and therefore improve the quality of the overall competition. While the World Championships should definitely strive to represent all nations of the world as much as possible, it should also seek to maintain an overall level of fairness for all athletes that wish to participate, and thus not compromise the overall level of competition on account of national allegiances.
August 12th, 2005 at 9:26 pm
If you move to Monaco, you’ll be world class. Or you could change your name to Andrew Rock- it’s not so bad of a name, although Owen might fit you slightly better. Just a thought.
August 13th, 2005 at 2:49 am
Speaking of Andrew Rock, he needs to fire his agent. The man is a rare breed. A Division III athlete with world class talent. That alone makes him more recognizable than a lot of other athletes. When he graduated from Wisconsin LaCrosse last year he signed on with adidas for less than six figures. He then goes on to win a gold medal in the 4×400m relay at the Olympics and now he takes home the silver at the World Championships running a personal best 44.35. Meanwhile LaShawn Merritt runs one good race as a college freshman and he’s raking in the dough, no medals, no world championship participation (given though he has a very high ceiling). In any case, come on adidas, give Rock what he deserves.