The flipside of this is that the reason the playoffs are 7-game series is that they know anything can happen in a single game and it's not a good representation of which team is better. I think a simple solution would be to have multiple heats over a few days and average the best 3 out of 5 or something like as your time.
no joke man...nobody talks or gives a crap about track and field for 4 years, now they are all buying into the media hype and forcing themselves to care about a 200 meter dash and somebody that they hadn't heard of until a couple days ago. who the hell cares if the USA wins or loses a gold metal in a stupid track sprint?
You really, really need to stay out of the Olympic threads. You and your cardpire buddy just made my ignore list As a former track athlete (and 200m sprinter at that), I look forward to the track and field events of the Olympics with great anticipation. Since you obviously don't give a ****, why bother posting in this thread at all?
lol wow, you have no nationalism whatsoever? guess what, there are a hell of a lot more people in the world who care about watching the Olympics than the Rockets, believe it or not
i offered a dissenting opinion to the OP's complaining about the olympic trials process for track and field. all you did was say you like track and field, and don't think we should be offering our opinions unless we agree with the original poster. nice, worthwhile posting.
lol. if not giving 2 *****s if the USA wins a gold medal in the 200 meters in the 2008 olympics means i "have no nationalism whatsoever", then i guess not.
Well what about the NFL playoffs or NCAA Tournament? Part of the excitement of sports is "win or go home" and injuries happen. It sucks that the best might not make it but clearly they weren't the best that day and its not fair to the guy who did end up performing and winning a spot. I mean what happens if Tyson Gay cramps up at the Olympics? Should we say he's the best so lets run another race and give him another chance?
I would suggest that the NBA probably does a better job of picking the "best team" than the NFL and certainly the NCAA Tournament. That said, the NCAA Tourney / NFL are more exciting to watch for that same reason. And I agree that, for the Olympics, win-or-go-home makes sense. But does it make sense for the Olympic Trials? Few people watch those. The goal there is to get the best competitors to represent the country, not to excite the crowds or TV audience. For that, a win-or-go-home mentality doesn't seem to make nearly as much sense.
way to take fragments out of context. lol. and what exactly does member # have to do with anything? i'm guessing you'll have a humdinger of a time answering that one intelligently.
I think what Cheetah says makes sense. It's really a tough system. Perhaps they could have a point system where your best three results of the qualifying season count 50 % and your result in the trials counts 50 %. And if your best three results of the season all beat the result that the winner at the trials reached, you are put ahead at the discretion of the association. Or something like that. But either way, it's tough for the one who gets left out.
I like the Olympic trials system in track and field and swimming. Even if it may seem harsh that it's based on how you do on a specific day, at least it's fair. The person who got ahead of your favorite legitimately earned their spot at that trial. I don't want politics playing a part. Some countries and sports have a more complicated point system, but that doesn't always work either. Someone could be performing injured or not at their best, and make the team due to past points even though they're not the best competitor that could be sent at the time of the Olympics. It's happened in Canadian women's gymnastics this year already. The Olympics aren't going to wait for the "best" performers anyway. I just hate to see it taken away from people who are doing their best at the time because of someone's preconceived notions of who should be on the team (or, worse, preconceived plans to put someone on the team because they bought a spot, in some way, or because they already had endorsement deals - it's happened in more subjective sports like skating).
Another subject: anyone watching the Swimming Trials? What do you guys think of Dara Torres? Myself, I feel kind of suspicious... I hate to say something bad about somebody but it just doesn't seem like anything that happens naturally...
Isn't she the one that volunteered for all that extra testing? I did see pictures of her and at 41 she is absolutely cut -- this will be her 5th Olympic games. Amazing. _______ Tyson is going to speak tonight during the other trials -- I'm curious about his opinion on being out and how severe his injury actually is cramp/ pull/ etc.
Tyson says he is comfortable with the rules -- class act because you know it has to burn to sit on the sideline when you know your the best in the world. Let's go Crawford...
I think it's sad that we're at a point now where we assume all athletes that achieve unexpected greatness do so by unnatural means. Here's a pretty good article on Torres. http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3474191
