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]14The 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.
Time for a quick swim at the back beach and then some breakfast.
PC
Updated in December as new IAAF Qualification marks were released.
2 See also Hollingsworth/Wroe at Daegu 2011 http://www.insideathletics.com.au/17-other/2167-athletics-australia-changes-their-tune-on-extending-selection-deadlines
The ABC’s report, explicitly states that AA nominated him http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/18/2307873.htm?site=olympics/2008
7 2012 AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC TEAM ATHLETICS AUSTRALIA NOMINATION CRITERIA
p1. A (4).
14 http://www.athletics.com.au/home/news/news/2012/june/athletics_australia_confirm_ex
AA confirms it will ignore the Nomination criteria and select until July 7
AA confirms it will ignore the Nomination criteria and select until July 7
Bravo, well stated....particularly impressed with the analysis of importance of keeping the public in the loop. As a Aths fan I have never felt more disconnected from my sport than this domestic season. The Nationals in Melbourne were a disgrace (conversely, with the advent of twitter and Foxtel I have never felt more connected to the international scene). If I were a junior considering whether or not to pursue a career in Track and Field, and I had only this year to go off, I would definitely look to other options.
ReplyDeleteClarity, simplicity, and autonomy, and incentive to perform to a local audience are for my mind the building blocks of the future of our sport. Good governance if the answer to making these the cornerstones.
A comment from Mike Hurst
ReplyDeleteUnfair
A thoughtful and significant commentary on governance, although whenever the word "discretion" appears in a selection criteria I would suspect in law it renders every other constriction redundant.
On another front, consider the fairness of the AA selection which declares that anyone (except those with medical exemption) who fails to participate in all of the designated compulsory meets on the AA circuit be rendered in eligible for selection. But unless you are supported by AA or SIS you must find you're own way on a virtual lap of the nation. If you cannot afford, you cannot compete and therefore you are technically eliminated from our Olympic Team. Appalling and unfair.
MikeH