Flo Meiler, at Lyon hep, is among front-runners as U.S. pick for AoY. Photo by Rob Jerome
The Eurovets website is
inviting nominations for WMA World Best Masters Athletes for 2015. The prize, of course, is a trip to Monaco for the IAAF Gala in late fall. Here’s what the Euros learn: “WMACS Lyon 2015 closed the final result booklet just a week ago. Now we are waiting to see who will be nominated as the “European Best Master 2015”. The procedure of the election must go through the national federation which should send the application form to EMA Secretary
Helena Maria Pires de Carvalho and EMA Statistician
Ivar Söderlind. The statistician group will nominate three candidates (male and female). EMA Council will check the proposals and vote for one male and one female athlete. These athletes will be European Best Masters 2015 and the candidates for World Best Masters 2015. This year we have many athletes who did excellent performances – it will be a difficult decision.” The U.S. picks (made by Mary Trotto’s awards committee) eventually will go to
our WMA region, headed by
Sandy Pashkin. Not sure how the region winnows down the nominees. In any case, who should USATF nominate for male and female Athletes of the Year?
12 Responses
The candidates – male and female – should be athletes who demonstrated a high level of athletic ability – ie not someone who wins one race or one event. That being said it should also be those whose achievements are considerable. Age grading probably might be a consideration.
Personally I do not have candidates in mind – as I do not know which US athletes would meet this criteria. But it is my view that who ever is nominated has demonstrated ability in more than one meet both in domestic and international competition, and at a high level of competence.
There are many fine athletes whose names will be forwarded not only in the US but especially in Europe. We should nominate strong candidates who stand a good chance of winning this honor. It is not the number of medals that matters, it is the quality of the achievements.
This is a tough question, Ken, since there are quite a number of deserving candidates.
Apparently, it was too tough for the USATF for even come up with an Athlete of the Week. All those great performances in Lyon, and the USATF named no one as Athlete of the Week?
Now that Beijing is in full swing, I guess Lyon has been forgotten.
I think Mary summarized it perfectly, especially with her last sentence.
Not sure I am reading the results correctly, but it appears Flo Meiler only beat three different people in total to win her four gold medals.
You stay classy, San Diego!
The larger question, Ken, is whether the Awards Committee uses established criteria to guide its selection of the nominees, rather than simply a broad call for subjective appraisals of the many outstanding candidates for such recognition. The USATF Men’s Track & Field committee, which I serve on, uses the following: (a) major championships won, (b) world and national records established, and (in the case of a close contest (c) win-loss record between candidates. This is similar to the rankings system deployed by Track & Field News (the “Bible of the Sport” for nonmasters), and has proved useful in guiding our deliberations, and avoiding the appearance of bias and personal preference.
Alan brings up a good point about criteria. Further to his point, are the criteria used on a national level the same as those used on a regional level?
Last year, it was a bit confusing that Irene Obera was the U.S. Athlete of the Year but not the U.S. female nominee for World Athlete of the Year because she did not compete in either Budapest or Costa Rica. I’m not sure of the fairness of this practice since it tends to favor those who can afford to travel to international meets. Award-deserving achievements can happen at state and national meets, not just at international competitions.
Perhaps if the national and regional committees published their criteria, it would easier to answer the question that you pose, Ken.
The reason Irene Obera’s non-participation in either the Indoor Worlds in Budapest or NCCWMA in Costa Rica eliminated her from consideration for the World Masters Athlete of the Year award in 2014 was that WMA establishes the criteria for its awards, which are published. One of those criteria is that candidates cannot be nominated if they have not competed in either a world or regional championship in the year for which the award is to be given. Pretty straightforward when you read the criteria. The national and regional committees deciding on nominees to WMA must follow those criteria.
The criteria being followed by the USATF masters committee are the same as those being followed by the Europeans, which are linked in Ken’s original post. Use those and you can come up with your personal answer to Ken’s question.
Other than the explicit WMA criteria, which must be adhered to, the criteria used by the USATF masters committee are pretty much those Alan lists above, with the exception that his third criterion (head-to-head competition) isn’t really applicable when it comes to athletes not in the same age group. Age graded results can help, but many of us are highly skeptical of the validity of those across events.
Thanks, Jerry, that’s really helpful to know about the criteria and, yes, the head-to-head competition factor could only be fairly applied to people in the same age category. BTW I don’t think people know that one of the main reasons Irene didn’t attend the NCCWMA meet (besides the cost factor for attending both indoors and outdoors last year) was that we were explicitly told in writing by a NACAC rep that it would NOT count for WMA AOY consideration. By the time this was subsequently clarified, we had already made other travel plans for August and simply accepted her ineligibility for any consideration.
When will the U.S. nominees for WMA AOY be announced? Last year, the announcements were made fairly soon after NCCWMA Costa Rica.
Irene Obera is clearly the highest performing athlete in the World. It is clear that she is ranked No. 1 in the World in five(5) events. Her actual marks in these events exceed 30 to 80% of those currently ranked in the World that are 10 to 15 years younger than she.
Lorraine, as much as I greatly admire Irene as a person and athlete and recognize her excellent indoor and outdoor seasons this year, I would have to say that Kathy Bergen has my vote. 6 world records and 1 American record were set by Kathy in 2015 in the W75 age group. That’s hard to beat.
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