Germans post qualifying standards for indoor nationals
USATF masters nationals remain an all-comers meet, but in other countries only the best need enter. That’s my impression after seeing a list of mindestleistungen, or “minimum performances,†set for the German masters indoor nationals Feb. 24-25, 2007, in Dusseldorf. The marks appear to be qualifying standards. But my German is poor, so they also might be medal standards — marks you have to attain to collect a medal in your event and age group. Guess this takes care of lots of heats and throwing sections in Germany. (But if you’re a hurdler, no problems! No minimums for the 60 highs.) These standards are pretty stiff. My thanks to Annette and Robert Koop for first posting this information.
9 Responses
It says you can compete if you’ve put up that performance sometime in 2005-2007
What are those silly Germans thinking!!! STANDARDS for medals or actual participation?????!!! Dont they know that this is all about FUN FUN FUN FUN!!!Dont they realize participation is the MOST important issue.. NOT results?? What are these people thinking?? Best of all they seem have a rather “active” and healthy membership DESPITE these harsh harsh conditions…golly i wonder what that is all about??? Track and Field is a VERY difficult sport in reality.. NEVER any place to hide…a stopwatch or tape measure can never give you a “break”. Who wants to deal with these critical dynamics?? NOT a lot of Americans actually (based on overall population) BUT thats the way it goes..i say work with what we have and make it(Masters T and F USA) and make it better. We need medal standards as well. Put some respect BACK into a National Title and just dont sell it to the person who “happens to show up”.. GO GERMANY!!Reinhard i hope you are listening!!! best of luck in your Nationals…
sure we should have performance standards in order to qualify for national masters meets. The National senior games have such standards – but frankly they are pretty easy to meet. However their outdoor meet is held every two years and there are many many venues where one can go to qualify. We could use the senior games model and hold qualifying meets for outdoor nationals in all 50 states, not regional meets, but state meets. One can qualify at senior games meets – assuming they have USATF Officals – etc. Probably that is possible. We are likely to lose a number of participants should this happen but then the hard-core masters tracksters would be happy to see the “amateurs” go away and leave the meets to the best of the best.
As for the indoor nationals – sure – have standards – and cut the participation rate in half or even less. I know of many fine indoor track competitors who run one indoor track meet a year – the nationals – if they had to qualify at an indoor meet – they would be unable to participate. Perhaps the Germans have sufficient indoor facilities available and sufficient qualifying meets that they do not lack for participants at their National Indoor Meet. We do not – where are the indoor facilities in Florida, Southern California, Hawaii, and even more important – where are the indoor track masters track meets in many parts of the country.
It is one thing to shout about how we should have standards, it is quite another to make them available. Not all of us live in Metro NY or Boston. And not all of us have the time and money to spend traveling a considerable distance to a qualifying meet. But then – lets just turn masters track and field into an elitist sport.
A quick look at the German standards show that few of them are unreasonable. In almost every event, all ranked US athletes met the standards (15-20 deep in most events and age groups).
I agree that the main goal in masters sports is improving individual performance. I respect people train hard and prepare for the meet, regardless of how they perform. But, the meet must be more than a workout for untrained older adults who think they might like to get in shape or try track and field.
I resent it when complete novices enter the championships. It slows the competition and turns it into an all-comer play-day for old people. Let them learn the events in practice or in all-comer meet first.
Nobody expects elite performances from everyone in the meet. However, athletes should have enough respect for their competitors to learn the events and prepare adequately for championships.
I know it goes against the grain of those who view increased participation as the primary goal of masters T&F, but I agree with Mr. Fahey. With some qualifying standards not only would the meets flow better, but we non-elite athletes would view merely qualifying for Nationals as our “medal”.
I think the idea of qualifying for nationals has its positives and negatives.
From the meet organizers point of view, the more people that come the more dollars are collected. However, with more people also comes more headaches. So do they want more money and headaches or a high level competition?
From the elite athlete’s point of view, the more people that come means the higher chance of novices showing up in their events. It also could mean more competition too.
For many Americans, they don’t even know the organization exists or its nuances. Until a BIG meet like nationals comes to their neighborhood they know very little about USATF, and they find out they can enter so they do. While it is great that they take an interest, I can see how it could create a drag on the competition.
I think that instead of having qualifying standards
in the form of set times and marks, the regional or possibly the association meets should be the qualifying platform. If you are in the top maybe 6 at your region or association you qualify for the nationals. That would increase the importance of that meet, making that competiton better and in turn weed out the complete novices at nationals. Then the trick would be to promote the association and/or regional meet to the highest degree in the communities so that those people do come out then and find out what USATF Masters track and field is all about. Now, for those that cannot attend the regional or association meets for some reason, maybe we can have an alternate qualifying mark system or waiver for defending champions or medalists. In this way we can boost participation level at the association, regional, and national levels whuile at the same time have some respect for putting ot a higher level of competition.
I should mention, indoors is a whole different animal. Qualifying marks for indoors, to me, seems out of the question.
There are not enough indoor meets in many parts of the country and quite honestly it gets very expensive always having to travel. I come from an association that didn’t have any meets this past outdoor season. I had to travel hundreds of miles to get to the nearest meet and that was for outdoors. With travel expenses and hotel rooms some people can’t afford to go to very many meets, especially when it comes to the indoor season where there are even fewer meets to choose from. I am and would be very wary of booking plane tickets and hotel rooms to go to an indoor meet somewhere and find out it was not worth it afterward. A few of those and suddenly I am broke and had a bad time to go with it, and what if heaven forbid the surface was bad, the timing malfunctioned, or I got sick and I didn’t get that qualifying mark! Suddenly I am down $1k or more per meet and didn’t get the mark I needed. Of course that would never happen, or could it?
The answer to the indoor nationals is not as easy to work out as the outdoor one is, and we all know the outdoor one has proven to not be an easy answer.
Maybe we could brainstorm some ideas without being negative towards each other and come up with some good ideas that maybe are a little different than the normal.
Maybe it could be as simple as having a qualifying rule that the competitor must have competed in the said event within the past 2 years. However, that would knock me out since I haven’t ran indoors in 12 years. But if that were the rule, then that $1k per meet I mentioned earlier would be worth it since that race would qualify me.
You are correct, Ken. Those are the qualifying standards. Still, the German Nationals are a pretty crowded affair: 1,105 athletes competed in the National Indoor Championships 2006 in Germany. Since your blog does not handle long links too well, you can go to my website http://www.stefanwaltermann.com and go to links on the English pages. You will find the link to the medal standards in the upper right row. And tons of other links to Masters websites from all over!
As a qualifying mark for the indoor championships, outdoor results from the previous year could be used. Events such as the 200,400, 800, and the mile, could accept outdoor results within the last year. Events such as the 60 and the 60HH could accept standards set at 100m or 110HH. Field events would follow the same formula.
As long as we’re brainstorming, has anyone ever suggested breaking up the national championship meet into smaller segments at different sites? As an example the sprints/jumps (100-400, hurdles & jumps) could be held in the mid atlantic/south region, the distance events (800-3000, racewalks)could be held in the north west, and the throwing events could be held in the midwest. The all around events could be held at a different site, in a different time frame. The sites of the meets would rotate around the US each year to make it fair for competitiors from any region.
A smaller size meet hopefully would be easier to manage. It could allow more USATF associations to participate in the championships. It would also be “climate” friendly to the different disciplines of track and field.
Personally I think the current bid system is flawed which results in few or no suitable bids each year. I’m sure the bid for 2009 was done with all the best intentions but looking at the facility and the expected weather that time of the year in Florida, it raises doubts amoung those of us that will normally compete. There is no shade, no stands for spectators or competitors, not many bathrooms with actual plumbing, not much in the way of close accomodations, no parking near the track (since most of us will have to drive a rental car to the meet, there’ll be at leat 500-1000 cars a day at the site, intersecting throwing areas (which may play havoc with the dics, jav and weight throw, & high humidity. The track does seem very nice however (if you were having a hundred people for a meet, not a thousand plus).
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