Below is an excerpt from the Lap Count newsletter, posted with permission. Kyle Merber’s Lap Count newsletter both entertains and enlightens fans about athletes and happenings in our sport.
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From the Lap Count Newsletter
“This is just once again my plea that we give qualifying spots to the federation rather than to individuals.”
If your job’s primary responsibilities are email-based and you were enjoying a classic summer Friday, then hopefully you caught the live stream of Joe Waskom squeezing onto the starting line of a 20-person 1500m field in Lignano, Italy, then winning the damn thing in a shiny new PR of 3:34.64.
For those who missed out, it was not a smooth ride. Despite being a race presumably thrown together for the intent of producing fast times, this was a physical one, which for the young American, is an apt introduction to the European circuit where elbows are a bit sharper and room to run is harder to come by than an ice cube. And realistically, a little exposure to truly physical racing was the main benefit of this outing for Joe. Coming in, Waskom sat in the 53rd of 56 spots slated for Budapest, and was already a very likely candidate to be named to the World field. This near miss of the Worlds standard will propel him deep into safe territory rank-wise.
In years like 2023 when the US Championships are not at the end of the qualification window, it is certainly preferable that athletes are allowed to chase times. But it just still seems so unnecessary. Obviously, Waskom is good enough to compete well at Worlds. He finished second in a national meet up against four guys who had the standard and eight more that were within the rankings quota. If the system has determined that Cole Hocker, Hobbs Kessler, and Cooper Teare are fast enough to have earned their spot, then why would the guy who beat them not be?
This is just once again my plea that we give qualifying spots to the federation rather than to individuals. Enough with the sporting world’s most confusing song and dance! It seems like 98% of the time that an athlete needs to chase a time in order to officially make a team, they do it. Spare everyone the airfare to Europe! (Here come the emails about 2004!)
