Percy Cerutty: June 2012

Saturday 23 June 2012

Why can't we all be friends?

Athlete - association relationships

One of the notable features of the recent ructions within the athletics community has been the exposure of the fraught and brittle relationships between athletes and the national body. Percy thought he’d have a quick look at this and offer some thoughts.

The federal structure of athletics and it’s consequences

Athletics is organised in a federal structure with state bodies affiliated to AA. The vast majority of athletics in Australia is organised at a state level or below. State bodies are small and in regular contact with their members. Adam Bishop, Athletics SA’s CEO ran a 32 min 10km recently and Nick Honey, Athletics Vic’s CEO could be spotted behind one of the video cameras at the Big V 10. State bodies manage myriad events and this unceasing contact with athletes, coaches and officials at the grassroots level fundamentally informs how they view the sport.

State bodies can suffer when the focus on concrete organisational success at a competition level can lead to the neglect of strategic issues and concerns. This is especially true when the budget is tight and staff time is limited.

AA, as the peak body, has contact with athletes as they progress from state level competition to national and international competition. Of its nature, this can be sporadic. Athletes may slip in and out of national level competition and international teams. There are relative few opportunities to build relationships with athletes. AA is often seen in adversarial terms as athletes vie for selection on national teams and this may provoke a defensive response in return. The distance to athletes is a long standing structural problem for AA.

Building and maintaining athlete relationships has not been a forte of the current HPM.

Rob Fildes’ bold declaration that Australia would aim to win six medals in London and Hollingsworth’s laserlike focus on the athletes who could deliver these medals seems to have exacerbated these problems. Tamsyn Manou is one of the highest profile athletes in Australia and her relationship with AA formed the basis of lengthy blog post that provoked much discussion.

She’s the National Champion, Trials winner and has the IAAF B standard, but the current nomination philosophy and six medal focus has put her on the outside. She’s been Australia’s best 800m runner for more than a decade and yet her relationship isn’t a positive or fruitful one. Percy isn’t suggesting Dallas and Tamsyn should be meeting up for coffee on St Kilda Rd all the time. Nonetheless building and maintaining elite athlete relationships is strategically important for AA and a review of the last month (LaCaze, Tamsyn, 4X400m selection) suggests that this isn’t one of AA’s current strengths.

Damage done by poor relationships

Athletes are a diverse and quirky bunch: compare John Steffensen’s ‘In John we Trust’ to the almost Trappist attitude of Dani Samuels, Benn Harradine’s #popflipsthebird to Ryan Gregson’s outre wooing of Gen LaCaze on twitter. Those in and aspiring to be part of the Flame are the public face of our sport and the ideal that young athletes model themselves on. A failure to maintain good relations with our primary public and media assets hurts the promotion of the sport. Percy isn’t suggesting athletes need to be pampered. Yet every time an athlete is griping to the press it is a opportunity wasted to promote the sport. In a sporting media environment dominated by the football codes this is waste athletics cannot afford.

The perceived lack of support and disfunction damages the sport's ability to retain the next generation. The lack of support and the question marks surrounding team selection and nomination philosophy make the choice to pursue athletics significantly less attractive. This damage is slow to reveal itself and cannot be undone overnight.

On their own this would be sufficient to warrant a renewed focus on maintaing good relationships with athletes but they are secondary to what should be a primary focus of the sport and it’s administrators: “Athletics is about athletes.” Tim McGrath’s headline encapsulates an existential truth of our sport. Athletics is about going faster, higher and further and we should be working to give athletes at all levels of the sport every opportunity to achieve these goals. A decision that curtails the chances for athletes to compete at the Olympics, the pinnacle of our sport, pushes against this philosophy and should only be considered if the benefits are clear, demonstrable and outweigh the possible damage, and after broad discussion amongst the athletic community. Percy hasn't seen many benefits. Such a step changes the nature of the athlete-association relationship and the significance of the change should not be underestimated. lf the association cannot be relied on to chose an outcome that benefits an athlete over a neutral outcome, then distrust is inevitable.

As an aside the contrast between AA and the USATF nomination policy ‘The philosophy of USATF is to send the maximum number of athletes allowed by IAAF rules. The maximum team size is 141 athletes.’ couldn’t be greater.

Solutions

The telos of the sport is quite simple: ‘faster, higher, further’. We should adopt an ethos of the sport should focus on allowing all athletes to pursue their personal goals. We should be wary of a utilitarian philosophy that would achieve larger goals through the detriment of some individuals. Percy thinks that this is a a false choice. For example the size of our Olympic team will make little difference to whether Sally Pearson wins gold. She’ll win gold if the Flame has 10, 54 or 100 members. Let’s support everyone, not just a few.

A renewed focus on building relationships is important and it can range across all facets of athletes lives. As an example social media is exploding and there are opportunities and pitfalls for elite and emerging athletes, which AA could help them embrace and avoid as necessary.

I’ll leave the final word to Sam Culbert.

When working at AA in the 90s, the CEO had ATHLETE written on the back of his office door to ensure correct focus when making hard decisions

Thursday 21 June 2012

The power of the adhocracy in Olympic nominations

With the media release today, Athletics Australia has confirmed that it will ignore the Nomination criteria released on 4 August 2011 and ratified by the AOC. This is only possible with the aquiescence of the AOC who must approve all changes to the Nomination criteria. Read here for more details.

The gap between the AA QP and the IAAF QS has been narrowed but not closed completely. Madrid, Heusden-Zolder and Rethymno all fit within the IAAF QS but outside the AA QP (ht Pat Birgan).

The AA QP has in the last two weeks ended on 11 June, 22 June and now 2pm 7 July AEST.

Percy finds it difficult to imagine that an athlete who hits the mark at one of these meets (after the AA QP ends) would not get nominated, given the last two weeks.

The break down in governance and due process means that the formal certainty is gone and we are left with relying on the caprice of the AOC.

What happens in these situations

1. Athlete gets AQ in an event where no one is nominated? Are they assured a spot? Can they appeal?

2. Athlete gets AQ in an event where a IAAF B has been nominated? Can they appeal?

3. Would AOC allow nomination from out of favour athlete (see, D'arcy, Nick and Monk, Kenrick)? If not could they appeal?

Percy doesn't know and would look askance at anyone would claim to know with certainty.

Percy would like Colin Powell's Pottery Barn rule to apply: You break it, you own it.

Percy hopes that those responsible for the mess are doing to work to fix it.

LaCraziness and the governance of sport

Please permit Percy to take a stroll though what got us into the LaCraziness and what might be learned for the future of our sport.

Our amble begins with the release of the 2012 Australian Olympic Team Athletics Australia Nomination Criteria 4th of August 2011.1

The Australian Qualification Calendar
The restricted qualification calendar for Australian athletes is explicit in the Nomination Criteria.
The sections that lay it out.

p4. B, (12) Athletics Australia has set Athletics Australia Qualifying Periods in which the Nomination Standards must be achieved.

p21 specifies that the Australian Qualifying period will end on the date of the Final Selectors Meeting (Attachment 4, Date for FSM is 11 June at the latest, p3, 5 (e), )

p25 details that the IAAF Qualification Period ends on 8 July (Attachment 6, D (2))

p14 I.(2) The deadline of 10:00am on 22 June 2012 for the making of nominations by the Athletics Australia is absolute and mandatory and applies irrespective of any deadline prescribed under the Qualification System or by the Organising Committee for the 2012 Olympic Games.

The criteria thus creates two periods (a) June 12 - June 22, between the Final Selectors Meeting and the Nomination date and (b) June 22 - July 8, between the Nomination date and the end of the IAAF Qualification period, totalling 27 days, in which athletes might satisfy the IAAF Qualification System but not the AA criteria.

This policy for Australian athletes is ratified by the AOC and AA by August 2011.

Back to 2008
AA would not have to think back too far to find problems with qualification deadlines.2 Jeff Riseley, a raw talent in 2008 but now Australia's 2nd fastest all time over 800m and 3rd fastest all time over 1500m, ran a qualifying time in Rome after the Australian deadline but before the IAAF deadline for the Beijing Olympics.3

The AA press release delicately tiptoes around whether the nomination criteria were broken, suggesting but not stating, that the decision was made by the AOC. AA either broke it's own selection criteria or signaled to the AOC that it would allow the criteria to be ignored. The end result was the same, Riseley was on the team and the criteria were in tatters. 4

The 2012 Nomination criteria, far from being designed to avoid the such problems, contains the same month long qualification gap, uses the same language and creates the same incentives to alter or ignore the criteria. Those who wrote it must bear significant responsibility for the events of the last week given its foreseeability.

A return to 2012
On June 11, Daniel Lane describes in the Fairfax papers what AA and the AOC have know for 311 days, that there is a qualification gap between the AA QP and the IAAF QS.5
The team, the biggest since 2000 (a great headline), is announced on June 13. The governance damage from Riseley’s late inclusion in 2008 is already apparent.

Lapierre's form has been good and improving of late. He finished second to compatriot Mitchell Watt in a Diamond League meet in New York at the weekend, and competed in a second, smaller meet the next day in a desperate bid to break the qualifying mark.

Were he to jump an A-qualifying distance in the next month, ahead of the IOC cut-off date, the AOC has the discretion to add him to the list at Athletics Australia's request.6

This discretion is not in the Nomination criteria, and isn’t within AA’s power to use.
Minor grumblings occur as Melissa Breen was selected under the Rio clause, whilst Steve Solomon was not.7 There is still no suggestion that the Nomination criteria needs to be changed.
With the team named, it was only a matter of time before an athlete found themselves in Jeff Riseley’s shoes from 2008, and two days later it was Genevieve LaCaze, running 9:41 in the 3000m steeplechase, for an A qualifier in an event with no nominated Australian.
Hollingsworth, in a spectacularly unsuccessful attempt to defend the Nomination criteria, provoked a torrent of outrage.8 John Coates, ignoring the Nomination criteria that the AOC has ratified, suggested that LaCaze can go if AA nominated her.

"I hope that Australian athletics use what discretion they have and nominate her," Coates said today. "And I am sure that the AOC will exercise whatever discretion it has - I’d be very keen for her to be selected after what she has achieved."9

And governance and due process slip away.

This is the heart of the breach of governance. AA has no discretion to select her under the Nomination criteria that Coates’ AOC has approved. The source of the AOC’s power is in the second sentence, which hints at section J of the Nomination criteria.
"This Nomination Criteria may be amended by Athletics Australia with the approval of the AOC."
Thus AA has no discretion unless granted by the AOC.
AA’s board reads the signals from the AOC incorrectly and adheres to the Nomination criteria, though split 5-2.10 Coates gets on the phone to Rob Fildes, AA president later the same day, and makes explicit the approval of the AOC. Fildes and the board have been thoroughly out maneuvered by Coates and agree to extend the qualification window for all athletes until June 22.11 The Nomination criteria, which four days early were still AOC ratified, were in tatters and any governance concerns were swamped by the social media frenzy around LaCaze.12

All effective power in the process resides with the AOC and this is the heart of the governance failure. The Nomination criteria are only functional as long as they remain in the good graces of the AOC, and for 2 Olympiads, they have been ignored.

The AOC and AA are now openly disregarding the criteria.
"Any athlete now has until June 22 to achieve an A-standard performance and athletes who achieved the standard after June 22 and before the international deadline of July 7 would have a strong argument on appeal to yet be included in the team, AA and the AOC have admitted" 13
With more competitions, including the Paris Diamond League, to come before the IAAF QS closes, there’s a good chance that governance will again take a back seat to ad hoc decision making.[update: confirmed see footnote]14

The AOC has, in 2008 and 2012, subverted the Athletics Australia Nomination Criteria it ratified. In both instances the political savvy and media skills of the AOC drove AA to soft pedal the governance breaches, but they are clear. The formal power of the AOC to control the process is plain in the Nomination Criteria itself, "This Nomination Criteria may be amended by Athletics Australia with the approval of the AOC." (J) This history and power will make an appeal to the sympathies of the AOC de rigeur in future Olympic selection controversies and represents a threat to the good governance of Australian athletics that will not easily be managed.

Solutions
Percy isn't one to complain without offering up some remedies.
1.
Align AA Qualification period with IAAF Qualification System
It must be feasible to deal with nominations and appeals after the IAAF Qualification window ends. Many National Federations do it, there's no reason AA can't. An AOC objection would lack credibility given their insistence on late qualification in 2008 and 2012. This gives athletes the maximum opportunity to achieve qualification standards.

2.
Follow 2016 nomination process without any deviation and seek assurances, public and private, from AOC that they will do the same. The damage to credibility caused by a third failure in a row does not bear considering.

3.
The LaCraziness has emphasised the passion, drama and excitement that comes with Olympic nomination. AA should have a comprehensive media strategy that uses this to promote the sport. An opaque and complicated Trials and nominations process where information about athletes is difficult to find is unacceptable. Even diehard fans were unsure who was injured,A lack of information breeds distrust and rumour. Fans of athletics want to know everything and should be told almost everything (Percy doesn't need to see Tristan Thomas' achilles scans). Make a reality TV show about it if necessary. We should be paying attention every time something goes right, not just when AA gets rolled by the AOC.

4.
Craft a nomination philosophy that is explicitly maximalist. This would be a significant change from Eric Hollingsworth's approach which seems to focus on the dozen or so athletes who are likely medal prospects. Simplicity is one benefit of this approach, as is the certainty that flows from it. It also reduces discretion and the governance concerns. This certainly is also important to those who we would seek to retain in the sport as it reassures them that their future isn't uncertain. The recent LaCraziness would do little to instil confidence in a teenager weighing up their options that Athletics was a wise move and that the administrators were focused on athlete welfare. Percy is happy to concede that a maximalist philosophy is a policy that is not universally popular. A simpler nomination process is one benefit that cannot be ignored however.

Thanks for sticking with Percy's rant until the end.