Steve Osaduik, Athletics Canada's fumble.
The 'worlds' (World Track and Field Championships) in Osaka Japan are on and the men's marathon has been run, yet Canada's best marathon runner, Steve Osaduik is not there.
For those of you who do not run, the marathon is 26.2 miles or 42.195 kilometres long. The marathon has no world record per se, but a world standard, as each course is different, subject to the location's weather, hills, elevation, number of turns and 'other'.
So here in Victoria local (Nanaimo) runner, Steve Osaduik runs the 2006 Royal Victoria Marathon in a winning time of 2:16:49, breaking the 30 year old course record and setting a personal best. In fact it is the fastest time in Canada for 2006., whats more inside the International Association Of Athletics (IAAF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) 'B' standard for qualifying to go to international competition, which here includes, Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, Pan American Games, Francophone Games and World Track and Field Championships. His time is not under the Athletics Canada (AC) B standard, which is set by the Canadian Olympic Comittee (COC) ...(sounds like too much management to me).
So he runs a time (2:16:49) which no one had the foresight to predict.
The local newspaper, The Times Colonist, dedicated the front page, with headlines usually reserved for natural disasters and declarations of war. 'The Wizard of Oz'., they proclaimed, referring to Oz, as in Osaduik.
Why have a B standard? Why have a B+ standard? Why have a requirement to run a shorter race in a specific time to prove fitness, during the intervening time between your result and upcoming international competition? This, when AC are going to say "no" regardless. Why not just have a single time standard, one number, leave it at that. Crack it or stay home!
AC wants to 'own the podium', fair enough! I like the motto, much more than 'happy to participate' or whatever their old one was however, the athletes need the opportunity of high level exposure to learn to own the podium. I think Osaduik was faster than 20 or 25 % of the competitors at the World Track and Field Championships Marathon, several dropped out; a few unexpected runners placed in the top 10. Steve's odds were much better than AC's assumption.
Who do AC and or the COC think they are assuming they know for certain that a runner will not have a breakthrough race? They are playing God.
Let's go back to 'standards' as mentioned earlier, world standards. The Royal Victoria Marathon course is a good one, it is not uber fast, like Chicago, London, Rotterdam, Berlin, Sacramento and a few others however, is decent. Now AC could just as easily say, Steve should have made a better choice and ran the Chicago Marathon instead, which is debatably worth a solid two minutes. Steve ran Victoria in picture perfect weather, while Chicago was quite cold and very windy. Would he have run two minutes faster?
Courses vary, so why AC doesn't look for reasons to help send Osaduik to Osaka or even Pan Ams, NOBODY knows! Analyse the course, give him credit where credit is due and give him the opportunity.
They would still say no. So like I say, why have a B standard (2:18)? Why create hope?
AC completely eliminates contention to own the podium, by virtue of not sending Osaduik.
AC has a long history of screwing with the athletes, they should be nurturing. Go ahead and Google, Kathy Butler and Reid Coolsaet.
Research ancient history and see games invented by Mayans, Aztecs, Chinese, English, Greeks, Persians and Maori, that resembled hunting and war type games. Boxing and Greco Roman Wrestling are clearly combat, throwing for hunting purposes, running for chasing or being chased. These games pitted skill and natural ability without as much focus on rules. Later a sense of community or nation was developed where a version of (football) soccer was created (and other like games) where entire villages would chase a ball into another community's area. Apparently this could be a very physical game with violence and death.
Modern history, post industrial revolution, saw the dominance of the English, the Commonwealth and the development of rules and protocol. Here, international competition was revived, with order and the modern Olympics were introduced, Empire Games (Commonwealth) and so on an so forth.
Competitions were organized for sharing and introducing different cultures, politics and creating international goodwill and brotherhood, if you will. Friendly and amateur competition.
Has the AC and the COC lost sight of what the games are about?
My concern about setting standards, is the act of playing god. If every country took the position of only sending medal threats to International Competitions, then for the marathon perhaps only a handful of countries would have representation, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco and Japan for example.
In soccer, if FIFA invited only medal contenders, then one could argue that the second largest international sporting competition, The World Cup of Soccer will be wittled down to 4 or 6 teams and very little of the element of surprise.
I noticed the CBC airing of the marathon in it's entirety mentioned on more than one occasion during the marathon, that no Canadians are competing in the men's and women's marathon. I wish they would have impartially at least, indicated WHY!
Jon Brown, who lives and trains in Victoria and runs for Great Britain, has come in fourth place in the Olympic Marathon twice, within a few seconds of bronze, in both Sidney and Athens. Jon would have not qualified for the marathon if he decided to represent Canada. Is Jon not a contender?
As young runners develop in this country, they currently have very little to emulate, because AC had decided this. THIS is not how you develop young runners to embrace the sports in track and field.
Apparently AC sent a distance running coach to Osaka.
We had no distance runners.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Steve Osaduik should have been at the World Track and Field Championships, he got ripped off and Canada got ripped off too.
For those of you who do not run, the marathon is 26.2 miles or 42.195 kilometres long. The marathon has no world record per se, but a world standard, as each course is different, subject to the location's weather, hills, elevation, number of turns and 'other'.
So here in Victoria local (Nanaimo) runner, Steve Osaduik runs the 2006 Royal Victoria Marathon in a winning time of 2:16:49, breaking the 30 year old course record and setting a personal best. In fact it is the fastest time in Canada for 2006., whats more inside the International Association Of Athletics (IAAF) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) 'B' standard for qualifying to go to international competition, which here includes, Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, Pan American Games, Francophone Games and World Track and Field Championships. His time is not under the Athletics Canada (AC) B standard, which is set by the Canadian Olympic Comittee (COC) ...(sounds like too much management to me).
So he runs a time (2:16:49) which no one had the foresight to predict.
The local newspaper, The Times Colonist, dedicated the front page, with headlines usually reserved for natural disasters and declarations of war. 'The Wizard of Oz'., they proclaimed, referring to Oz, as in Osaduik.
Why have a B standard? Why have a B+ standard? Why have a requirement to run a shorter race in a specific time to prove fitness, during the intervening time between your result and upcoming international competition? This, when AC are going to say "no" regardless. Why not just have a single time standard, one number, leave it at that. Crack it or stay home!
AC wants to 'own the podium', fair enough! I like the motto, much more than 'happy to participate' or whatever their old one was however, the athletes need the opportunity of high level exposure to learn to own the podium. I think Osaduik was faster than 20 or 25 % of the competitors at the World Track and Field Championships Marathon, several dropped out; a few unexpected runners placed in the top 10. Steve's odds were much better than AC's assumption.
Who do AC and or the COC think they are assuming they know for certain that a runner will not have a breakthrough race? They are playing God.
Let's go back to 'standards' as mentioned earlier, world standards. The Royal Victoria Marathon course is a good one, it is not uber fast, like Chicago, London, Rotterdam, Berlin, Sacramento and a few others however, is decent. Now AC could just as easily say, Steve should have made a better choice and ran the Chicago Marathon instead, which is debatably worth a solid two minutes. Steve ran Victoria in picture perfect weather, while Chicago was quite cold and very windy. Would he have run two minutes faster?
Courses vary, so why AC doesn't look for reasons to help send Osaduik to Osaka or even Pan Ams, NOBODY knows! Analyse the course, give him credit where credit is due and give him the opportunity.
They would still say no. So like I say, why have a B standard (2:18)? Why create hope?
AC completely eliminates contention to own the podium, by virtue of not sending Osaduik.
AC has a long history of screwing with the athletes, they should be nurturing. Go ahead and Google, Kathy Butler and Reid Coolsaet.
Research ancient history and see games invented by Mayans, Aztecs, Chinese, English, Greeks, Persians and Maori, that resembled hunting and war type games. Boxing and Greco Roman Wrestling are clearly combat, throwing for hunting purposes, running for chasing or being chased. These games pitted skill and natural ability without as much focus on rules. Later a sense of community or nation was developed where a version of (football) soccer was created (and other like games) where entire villages would chase a ball into another community's area. Apparently this could be a very physical game with violence and death.
Modern history, post industrial revolution, saw the dominance of the English, the Commonwealth and the development of rules and protocol. Here, international competition was revived, with order and the modern Olympics were introduced, Empire Games (Commonwealth) and so on an so forth.
Competitions were organized for sharing and introducing different cultures, politics and creating international goodwill and brotherhood, if you will. Friendly and amateur competition.
Has the AC and the COC lost sight of what the games are about?
My concern about setting standards, is the act of playing god. If every country took the position of only sending medal threats to International Competitions, then for the marathon perhaps only a handful of countries would have representation, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco and Japan for example.
In soccer, if FIFA invited only medal contenders, then one could argue that the second largest international sporting competition, The World Cup of Soccer will be wittled down to 4 or 6 teams and very little of the element of surprise.
I noticed the CBC airing of the marathon in it's entirety mentioned on more than one occasion during the marathon, that no Canadians are competing in the men's and women's marathon. I wish they would have impartially at least, indicated WHY!
Jon Brown, who lives and trains in Victoria and runs for Great Britain, has come in fourth place in the Olympic Marathon twice, within a few seconds of bronze, in both Sidney and Athens. Jon would have not qualified for the marathon if he decided to represent Canada. Is Jon not a contender?
As young runners develop in this country, they currently have very little to emulate, because AC had decided this. THIS is not how you develop young runners to embrace the sports in track and field.
Apparently AC sent a distance running coach to Osaka.
We had no distance runners.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Steve Osaduik should have been at the World Track and Field Championships, he got ripped off and Canada got ripped off too.
posted by Chris at 11:36 AM
