China Olympic Coxswain Competition

Somewhere there are some coxswains fuming over this, I'll bet:

The position doesn't require brawn, speed or years of training — just a healthy set of lungs and a good sense of direction. China's Olympics rowing team is searching for coxswains: two diminutive people with big voices who will steer the men's and women's teams of eight rowers in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

The news here is not that China's looking for Olympic coxswains, but how they're planning to do it. The national broadcaster, CCTV, is launching a reality game show to find one man and one woman to join the Olympic team.

Most everyone (including Flash) is having a good laugh at this, and it is a pretty bizarre idea. But you know, maybe it's not that outrageous. I am not a rower myself, but I think it's safe to say that selection of coxswains for Olympic teams is always somewhat less objective than selection of rowers. Here's what Rowing Canada Aviron has to say on the subject in its 2006 selection document:

Coxswains interested in being considered for any team will be selected by the National Program Coach and High Performance Director based on the following criteria: (1) Athlete and coach input on ability; (2) Past racing experience and results; (3) Compatibility with athletes in a selected crew; (4) Willingness to support the coach’s direction.

That sounds a lot like "send us your resume and we'll set up an interview if we're interested." I am sure that the National Program Coach and the High Performance Director work very hard to ensure that the best candidates are chosen for the job, but the qualities they are looking for are pretty tough to measure.

That doesn't mean that they're trivial, of course. The way this story is being presented in the western media, it sounds like a coxswain just has to be small and loud, which is pretty insulting to coxswains. And it may turn out that the show is just as insulting, or worse. But that's going to depend pretty strongly on the details of the process.

I'm also curious about just how open the competition will be. When North Americans think of "reality shows," we usually assume that participation is restricted to amateurs or novices. Actual pop stars can't audition for American Idol, and professional chefs can't compete on Hell's Kitchen. Even sports-based reality shows like Making the Cut or Ultimate Fighter are built around collections of never-were's and almost-could-have-been's.

The tone of the WSJ piece (and this one from the CBC) makes it sound like China Olympic Coxswain Competition is going to have a similar format:

The reality show, however, will be looking for competitors who are at least 16 years old, said Nathan Jones, the international-relations manager for the program to The Sunday Times in the U.K. They should also weigh under 100 pounds and be in good health, he said, but otherwise there are few restrictions. “Everyone from the lowest peasant to old grannies can apply and can potentially be in the running for a gold medal, ” said Jones.

It's clear that they're making an open casting call, but I wonder if China's current coxswains will be part of the competition. It's not like they haven't been successful. The Chinese women's eight, with coxswain Zheng Na, finished fourth at the 2006 World Championships. Zheng Na also steered and cajoled the crew to a fourth place finish at the 2004 Olympic games. Surely, if the Chinese are serious about getting the best possible coxswain, Zheng Na needs to be included?

Now if China really wanted to push the envelope, they should try picking the rowers this way.

Back when I was in university, I dated a member of the UBC varsity women's rowing team. (In fact, I married a member of the UBC varsity women's rowing team, but this story is about a different rower.) She had started rowing in 1990, at the age of 19. In 1994 she started racing for Canada. In 1996, she won an Olympic silver medal in the eight. She added a bronze in 2000.

My point is that becoming an Olympic rower is so easy that anybody can do it.

No, wait, that's not it. My point is that people — athletic, driven, exceptional people with an incredible capacity for hard work — can become Olympic rowers even if they have no rowing experience until well into adulthood. There aren't too many sports that can make that claim.

Given that fact, it's not so far-fetched to imagine that a reality show that casts a wide net for potential candidates might actually turn up an Olympic athlete or two. If I was in charge of the rowing program in a totalitarian regime where the rights of the athletes were only of minor concern, I might consider it.

What would kill the idea, as far as selecting rowers is concerned, is that the transformation from novice to Olympian takes more than a couple of years. That's mostly because of the aforementioned hard work; you can't develop the physiological abilities of a world-class rower without an enormous training volume. That part of the process is too slow for TV, I'm afraid.

Meanwhile, the Chinese think that they can train a world-class coxswain in two years, if they start with the right material. Can they do it? I guess we're going to find out.

Selection Objectives

Earlier this week the Globe and Mail ran an article by Beverley Smith titled Different Criteria to Decide Figure Skating Berths. The article touches on a subject that has been on my mind lately, namely the way that athletes are selected to Olympic teams. Here are the first few paragraphs of the article, with emphasis added:

It's about to start, that darkest of all Olympic sports, the one featuring lawsuits and legal challenges from athletes who fail to qualify for an Olympic team, and who think they should.

Even so, it seems that some sport bodies are opting for more subjective criteria — naming teams after a group discusses the merits of its members — rather than strictly objective ones.

This week, for the first time, the Canadian figure skating championships in Ottawa will not be the only factor in choosing Canada's Olympic team. If defending Canadian champion Jeffrey Buttle has a bad day this week, it doesn't mean he will stay home to watch the Turin Games on television.

Now there's a clear inference here that there is something wrong with Skate Canada's Olympic selection criteria; that the criteria are too subjective, and that Jeffrey Buttle might be given some kind of a free pass if the nationals don't turn out the right way.

But I have a couple of problems with this argument. First of all, this has nothing to do with how objective or subjective the selection criteria are. Here are the relevant definitions from the American Heritage Dictionary:

subjective (adj.) 1(a) proceeding from or taking place in a person's mind rather than the external world: a subjective decision. 1(b) Particular to a given person; personal: subjective experience.
objective (adj.) 3(a) Uninfluenced by emotions or personal prejudices: an objective critic. 3(b) Based on observable phenomena; presented factually: an objective appraisal.

So, hands up — who thinks that selection criteria for the Olympics should proceed from the minds of the selectors, rather than observable phenomena in the external world? Anyone? That's what I thought. The debate that is touched on in this article is not (for the most part) about subjective versus objective selection criteria, in my opinion; and if it was, it would be a pretty uninteresting debate.

In this particular instance, the real issue is whether performance at the Canadian national championships should be the sole objective selection criterion for picking the three men who will skate for Canada; and if not, then what else should be considered? (I'm assuming, for the sake of argument, that the judging at a figure skating competition is objective. Let's just pretend, so that I can apply the argument to other sports that really do have objective races or competitions.) As noted, in the past Skate Canada has used the Canadian championships as the only factor; there was only one opportunity to make the Olympic team, and no other performances could be taken into account.

On this issue, we could have a worthwhile debate. I would argue that Skate Canada is doing a wise thing by deciding not to base their selection on a single event. Buttle provides a good illustration. He's the defending world championship silver medallist, and currently leads the ISU's world rankings. In other words, in all of the international competitions in which he has skated this year, Buttle has objectively demonstrated that he is a potential Olympic medallist. Furthermore, he has objectively performed better than his Canadian competitors in international competitions, losing only once, to Emanuel Sandhu. Why not write selection criteria that allow you to take that into account?

Now, I don't know what Skate Canada's selection criteria actually say. They don't seem to be available on the web site. But there's nothing inherently wrong with using all of the objective evidence available, instead of just the final ranking at the national championships, as part of the decision-making process.

Some people will argue that if Buttle can't come up with a top-3 performance at the Canadian championships, then he probably can't handle the pressure of the Olympics; or that it isn't fair that somebody who beats him on Friday will have to watch him compete at the Olympics next month. I don't buy the argument that a one-shot, winner-take-all selection gives you a better Olympic team, or that it is inherently more fair, but it's debatable.

The US Figure Skating Association is also holding a national Figure Skating Championships, and just like in Canada, the event will be used to make Olympic selections. The Globe piece has this to say:

The U.S. championships in St. Louis this week will also take a similar path, although its team will be chosen on a partially objective basis: Anybody who wins the senior U.S. title automatically gets to go to the Olympics. A cumbersome international committee of 36 members, each with one vote, will decide who fills the other Olympic berths.

Well I suppose you could say that this is "similar" to the Canadian process, since in each case there is a committee responsible for making the final selections. But really, this sounds like it is about as far in the wrong direction as you could possibly go. The 36-member committee is composed of "athletes, coaches, judges and board members." Now it's possible that those 36 interested parties carefully evaluate the athletes' objective performances against the selection criteria before they vote; but it's far more likely that this plays out just about like the Olympic host city election, or the Olympic programme vote. This is simply too many people — so many that nobody has any real responsibility for the selection.

The most controversial decision that the committee will have to make will be with respect to five-time world champion Michele Kwan. Kwan has decided that she will not be able to compete at nationals due to an injury. Instead, she will petition to be included on the US team in Turin, on the basis of … well, that's where the objective part would come in, you would think. Kwan herself has said, "I feel I am one of the three best skaters in America," and it would be hard to come up with a more subjective statement than that.

The central problem is that Kwan has basically been injured for the whole season, competing only once: columnist Philip Hersh described it as a "decidedly underwhelming performance with no clean triple jumps at a meaningless, made-for-TV event." (Hersh nevertheless argues forcefully that Kwan "deserves" to be on the Olympic team, but can't really hide the fact that this would be a purely subjective decision. He's reduced to a nomination based on reputation alone, arguing that Kwan is "bigger than her sport," and denigrating her potential replacements.) As a further wrinkle, Kwan has apparently signed on as the lead Olympian in Coke's 2006 Olympic advertising campaign. As SI.com asks, "Do you think being the centerpiece of the ad campaign of perhaps the Olympics' most prominent sponsor will help or hurt her chances of being named to the U.S. team?" Kwan's marketing power might be an objective fact, but probably not one the USFSA should use in this case.

Olympic selection doesn't have to be based on a single, winner-take-all event to be objective. If Jeffrey Buttle, for some reason, finishes a close fourth at nationals and still makes it to Turin, I won't have a problem with that. But the USFSA selection process is a good example of what everybody is afraid of when they hear the words "selection committee."

Gushue/Howard Win Olympic Trials

Alan Adamson (of the Curling blog) and I have been having a drawn-out conversation about Olympic team selection in curling. Specifically, Alan has been objecting to the selection approach being used in Britain, and I have been defending it, to a degree.

The British approach for 2006 is to have a "bunch of administrators," as Alan puts it, assemble the "best" foursome from the members of the best rinks in the UK (read Scotland in this case). Alan, being a very non-interventionist, market-solution kind of guy, doesn't like placing that kind of decision-making power in the hands of the British curling association. Without defending the specific process being used in Scotland, I have argued that creating an all-star foursome might be, in some circumstances at least, the best way to optimize the performance of your team.

The Canadian Olympic curling trials finished this past weekend, and the selection process was the polar opposite of the British approach. The CCA kept their fingers out of the selection as much as possible, setting up a qualifying process that admitted 10 men's and 10 women's team into the draw, and then letting the teams play a bonspiel with the Olympic team berth as the prize. If you are a curling fan it was some gripping entertainment; Alan and I both agree that it would be a shame, from a fan's point of view, to see the Trials replaced by a sequence of training camps and player evaluations.

On the men's side, something quite interesting happened, and it has some implications for the Canadian selection philosophy. The trials were won by the Brad Gushue rink. I want to say "the Brad Gushue rink from Newfoundland," but that's where the interesting part comes in. The winning team wasn't quite the Brad Gushue rink from Newfoundland; it was the Brad Gushue rink from Newfoundland with Russ Howard from New Brunswick throwing second stones:

Helping Gushue along the way was Howard, the 13-time Brier representative and two-time world champion. The 49-year-old was added to the team a few months back, a move that drew criticism. Could such a drastic change so close to a big event disrupt team chemistry? "He's fit into the team great and he's become a real good friend," Gushue said of Howard, who brought a steadying influence to the team throughout the week. "He's a special player."

Gushue's team was not considered one of the tournament favourites — in fact his opponent in the final was quoted some weeks ago as saying that Gushue had no chance to win. Therefore, Howard is getting a lot of credit for the team's success. Now this is clearly an example of the type of "free market" solution that Alan advocates; Gushue recognized that his team needed to be stronger, looked around for a top-quality curler who was not otherwise committed and would be a good fit with his team, and brought him on as his fifth. After experimenting with different arrangements, he optimized his team's performance by bringing Howard to the trials as second, and now they're all off to the Olympics.

Of course, I would have to counter that Gushue's rink might have been even better had he switched out even more of his players, and if he had been able to select players from other qualified teams instead of just picking up "leftovers" like Howard! The rules of the trials prohibited this, from what I understand, allowing teams to change only one player between qualifying for and competing in the trials. I suppose that the rules could be relaxed, allowing a free-for-all of substitutions. But that would raise some tricky questions about the validity of a team's qualification for the trials, wouldn't it?

And if the option had been available to the players, would they have taken full advantage of it? I guess Alan might argue that competitive pressure would be enough to lead to the formation of an "optimal" Canadian team. I think that the players have many sentimental and irrational reasons not to be performance-optimizing selectors; I think that outside experts (national team coaches, for example) are more likely to be unbiased evaluators.

As long as teams qualify for the trials on the basis of their performance in CCA events, including the Brier, the teams will be mostly organized along provincial lines. As I have said to Alan before, Canada is so strong in curling that a provincial champion rink might be good enough to win the Olympic gold medal (although Terry Jones has doubts). For now, there is little motivation to change a selection process that is very popular with the players and the fans, and very easy for the CCA. When (not if) Canada loses their dominance, I am sure that we are going to see some kind of all-star selection process — it's inevitable.

The Olympic Experience and Athlete Development

Last month I wrote an essay about the COC's "Top 12" selection criteria for the 2004 Summer Olympic Games. One of the common arguments against raising the standard is that it robs developing athletes of the opportunity to gain experience at the Olympic level. I promised that I would take a look at some data to see if that argument holds water.

I looked at this from a couple of different perspectives, but I kept one common assumption: I assumed that the ultimate goal is to win more medals. You may disagree with this goal; in that case, the rest of this article really isn't for you. Also, I should warn everybody that this is going to get a bit mathematical.

I don't have access to information about athletes who didn't qualify for the games, what the qualification standards were, or how they were specifically applied. I also can't really get into a lot of sport-specific issues, because the small numbers of athletes make a meaningful analysis difficult. What I can do is take a broad look at Olympic performance across all sports. Let's see what conclusions we can draw.

I used the COC's athlete profile search tool to compile the following statistics and lists. I wrote a MATLAB script to query and mine the database.

Is Olympic Experience Worth Anything?

The first question I tried to answer is this: does Olympic experience increase an athlete's ability to win medals?

I looked at the last five summer Olympic games teams, from 1988 to 2004. If you add up the number of athletes on the five Canadian teams, you get a total of 1543 athlete-games. (Note that this is greater than the number of unique athletes.) Of these, 1037 (67%) were athletes attending their first Olympics.

Of these 1037 first-time Olympians, 89 (8.6%) won medals. Of the 506 experienced Olympians, 64 (12.6%) won medals.

At first glance, this seems to prove conclusively that Olympic games experience gives an athlete a huge advantage when it comes to winning medals. There is one confounding factor, however, which is that athletes who have already been to one or more Olympics are generally older.

Figure 1

Figure 1 — Age distribution of Canadian Olympic athletes, 1988-2004 (click to enlarge).

Figure 1 (inset right) shows the age distribution of Canadian Olympic athletes from 1988 to 2004. The median age for first-time Olympians was 25 years; the median age for experienced Olympians was 29 years. That four-year difference in age and experience, independent from attendance at an Olympic Games, could partially account for the observed difference in performance.

To study the question of age bias in the analysis, I took all of the athletes in the two groups and divided them into sub-groups by age. I excluded the very youngest athletes, because there were very few with Olympic experience; similarly, I excluded the very oldest athletes, because there were very few rookies. Within each of the remaining age sub-groups, I calculated the percentage of first-time Olympians and the percentage of experienced Olympians who won at least one medal.

Figure 2

Figure 2 — The relationship between medal performance and age for Canadian Olympic athletes, 1988-2004 (click to enlarge).

Figure 2 (inset right) shows the results. The red line shows the percentage of athletes with Olympic experience in each age band who won medals, and the green line shows the percentage of athletes without Olympic experience in each age band who won medals. Note that an athlete might have been a first-time Olympian in 1988, and an experienced Olympian in 1992 and 1996; that athlete would contribute to three different points on the plot.

In general, the red line is higher than the green line, which indicates that the athletes with Olympic experience do enjoy an advantage over their colleagues of the same age in terms of winning medals.

There's another interesting result here, which is that age doesn't seem to matter all that much, especially for the first-timers; all age groups had about the same probability of winning a medal. Or perhaps more precisely, the distribution wasn't as strongly peaked as I expected.

But What Kind Of Experience?

So, experience as an Olympic competitor does seem to give athletes a slight edge when it comes to winning medals, which is in line with the conventional wisdom. The next question to ask is whether the quality of that previous experience matters, and if so, how much?

For this purpose, I looked at all the first-time Olympians from 1988, 1992, and 1996. I looked at their best result in their first Olympics, and then checked to see whether they won a medal in their second or subsequent Olympics. I started with 1988 because the boycotts in 1980 and 1984 obviously cause a distortion in this kind of longitudinal analysis, and I stopped with 1996 because the first-timers in 2000 and 2004 may not yet have had time to develop their full potential.

Figure 3

Figure 3 — The relationship between initial Olympic performance and medal potential, 1988-1996 (click to enlarge).

Figure 3 (inset right) shows the results of this study. The horizontal axis divides the first-time Olympians into categories by their best result at their first Olympics. The vertical axis shows the percentage of those athletes who won medals in later Olympic games.

Overall, 33 out of 638 (5.2%) first-time olympians won medals in their second or subsequent Olympics. Figure 3 shows conclusively that the better you do your first time, the more likely you are to win a medal later. No big surprise there.

What I am most interested in here, for the sake of the discussion surrounding the top 12 selection standard, is the group that did not finish twelfth place or better in their first Olympics; the lowest and right-most point on Figure 3. To keep the terminology of the discussion simple, I'm going to refer to these as "D-Olympians," short for developing Olympians. To recap, then, a D-Olympian is an athlete at their first Olympic games who does not finish twelfth or better in any event.

At each summer Olympic games between 1998 and 1996, 25-35% of Canadian athletes were D-Olympians. If the COC top 12 standard could be magically applied with perfect foresight, then these athletes would be among the group excluded from the Canadian team. If we want to provide beneficial experience for future medallists, is this a reasonable place to make a cut-off?

There were 7 D-Olympians (2.3% of all D-Olympians) in the 1988, 1992, and 1996 Summer Games who eventually won Olympic medals. Since I concluded earlier that experience helps, there is a chance that these seven medals would not have been won if the top 12 standard had been applied to the team selection.

Let's look at the seven individuals who later won medals, to see if we can refine our assessment of that chance.

The Exceptional Seven

There are some interesting common threads in this list of seven D-Olympians who defied the odds.

Four of these athletes (Brunet, Walton, Surin, and Chalmers) were close enough to top 12 that they probably would have achieved the COC qualification standard. The standards are always designed to identify those athletes with the ability to finish in the top 12.

All of these athletes were young in their D-Olympic year. The median age for Canadian first-time Olympians in these three games was 25. Chalmers, the oldest in the group, was still young for a long-distance runner.

Five of the seven (Brunet, Surin, Gilbert, Walton, and Montminy) didn't win their medals until two Olympics (8 years) after they were D-Olympians.

Four of the seven (Surin, Gilbert, Walton, and Lareau) won their medals in events that they didn't compete in at their D-Olympics.

Four of the seven (Brunet, Surin, Lareau, and Montminy) claim Quebec as their home province, with one each from Ontario, Manitoba, and BC. Does Quebec do a better job at nurturing D-Olympians than other provinces?

Caroline Brunet (Canoe/Kayak) was 19 years old in 1988 when she finished 13th in women's kayak singles. She went on to win three Olympic medals in 1996, 2000, and 2004. She also competed in 1992, and finished seventh.

Brian Walton (Cycling) was 23 years old in 1988 when he finished 13th in the men's team time trial. He went on to win a silver medal in 1996 in the points race. He did not compete in 1992.

Angela Chalmers (Athletics) was 25 years old in 1988 when she finished 14th in the women's 3000m. She went on to win a bronze medal in 1992.

Bruny Surin (Athletics) was 21 years old in 1988 when he finished 15th in the men's long jump. He went on to win a gold medal in 1996 in the 4x100m relay. He also competed in 1992, and finished fourth in the 100m.

Anne Montminy (Diving) was 17 years old in 1992 when she finished 17th in the women's 10m platform. She went on to win two medals in 2000. She also competed in 1996, and was 24th in the 10m platform. She entered the 1996 games with a fourth-place world ranking.

Glenroy Gilbert (Athletics) was 20 years old in 1998 when he finished 22nd in the men's long jump. He went on to win a gold medal in 1996 in the 4x100m relay. He also competed in 1992, and was disqualified in the long jump. Although not listed on the COC database, elsewhere I find that he was also part of the 4x100m relay team that finished 15th in 1992.

Sebastien Lareau (Tennis) was 23 years old in 1996 when he was eliminated in the round of 64 in men's singles. He went on to win a gold medal in 2000 in men's doubles.

Can we conclude anything about the Olympic experience with respect to developing medallists? If these seven athletes had been denied their first Olympic experience due to a tough qualifying standard, would it have stunted their later careers?

The first four of these athletes were very close to a top 12 finish; they probably would have been selected to their D-Olympic team even in the face of a top 12 standard, simply because the standards are not meant to make such fine distinctions.

Montminy would definitely have made the 1996 Olympic team, even if she had failed to qualify in 1992, assuming that it didn't end her career. Similarly, Gilbert probably would have qualified in 1992, although this is less certain than Montminy's case. Therefore, these two athletes would not have gone into their "medal Olympics" as rookies.

Lareau is probably the only one of the seven athletes who would have arrived at his medal Olympics without any prior Olympic experience, had a top 12 standard been in effect. However, as a professional tennis player, he competed in many events that are considered more prestigious than the Olympics. It seems unlikely that his first-round singles defeat in 1996 had a significant effect on his doubles performance in 2000.

Conclusions

Of course we cannot possibly ever know the answers to the questions I have been asking: "what would have happened if ..." We can't predict, for individual athletes, how the future would have been changed if selection standards had been tougher.

However, my analysis leads me to two conclusions. First, that previous Olympic experience does give athletes a small advantage when it comes to winning medals. But second, that almost all athletes who go on to win Olympic medals finish in the top 12 at their first games. In other words, the athlete who competes for the "experience" of finishing twentieth is almost never going to win an Olympic medal. If medals are important, then the COC's money is better spent elsewhere.

COC Reviews Selection Criteria

This past weekend, the Canadian Olympic Committee board of directors met in Toronto and began the process of setting the Olympic selection criteria for 2008. I thought that I would take the opportunity to comment on this issue, which received a lot of press this past summer.

For 2004, the COC applied a uniform "top 12" criterion in all non-team sports (team sports were exempt; Canada qualified only in baseball, softball, and women's water polo). That is, an athlete or crew had to demonstrate the ability to achieve a top twelve finish in their event at the Olympics. In many cases, this is significantly tougher than the qualification standards set by the international federations (IFs) in their respective sports.

The end result was that some athletes who had met their IF qualification standard were not quite good enough to make the Canadian team. Understandably, this caused some anger among the athletes. Top officials at some of Canada's national sport federations (NSFs), who had to apply the top 12 criterion in selecting their Olympic teams, were also unhappy.

Against Top 12

It wasn't difficult to find people who thought that top 12 was a bad idea this August. Some stories survive on the web:

AthletesCAN

CANSPORT

Calgary Herald

The Link

Before, during, and after the Games, the media and many sports advocacy organizations picked up on these voices of dissent, and came down hard on the COC (examples inset). Personally, I'm a supporter of the top 12 criteria, and I think that the arguments put against it are either one-sided or just plain wrong. Here's my rebuttal to the usual arguments.

"Top 12 is unfair"

In the weeks before the Games started, there were two very well-written and personal articles posted on Runner's Web: one by Bruce Deacon, and another by Nicole Stevenson. These are two of Canada's top marathon runners. Canada was not represented in either Olympic marathon.

These two editorials typify the athlete's response to the COC standard; "If I'm the best in Canada, I should be at the Olympics; it isn't fair to set a tougher standard." This argument seems reasonable on its face, especially to the general public. However, I think that applying a uniform and tough standard is actually more fair than ceding the decision to the IFs.

For the 2004 marathon, the IF for athletics (the IAAF) raised the qualifying times and publicly encouraged national Olympic committees to send participants to Athens. This was designed to enlarge the field for the marathons, which of course have their historical roots in Greece. Williams picked up on Stevenson's story, in particular, and became one of her most prominent supporters. He stated several times on CBC television that the COC's refusal to send Stevenson was disgraceful.

What Williams and other journalists don't consider is whether this would have been fair to other Canadian athletes. Would it be fair to make an exception for the marathon, while other track and field athletes are left home for being unable to meet a tougher standard?

Similarly, would it be fair to allow a top 40 trap shooter to go to Athens, when the IF for rowing has set their field size much smaller? Sometimes different IFs set very different criteria. The top 12 standard allows the COC to ensure that athletes from different sports have to meet similar standards. That's only fair.

There is one important aspect of the top 12 standard which is unfair, and that is that it will not be applied to the 2006 Winter Olympic Games. If the top 12 standard is supported for the summer athletes as part of a broader plan to improve performance, then why shouldn't it be applied for winter athletes, too?

"Participation is what's important"

Many newspapers, and some athlete advocacy organizations, made the argument that Canada should send as many athletes as they are allowed to send to the Olympics, because participation — not performance — is what's important.

There are many people in Canada who actually believe this, and I can understand that point of view. On the other hand, there are many others, particularly in the media, who want to have it both ways. They espouse participation and the "Olympic experience," but are first in line to criticize the Canadian sport system when Canada doesn't win lots of medals at the Olympics.

The top 12 standard was instituted by the COC as part of a bigger plan to achieve better performances at the Olympics. It is fair to criticize the COC for having the wrong goal, if that is what you believe. It is also fair to criticize this particular strategy as a means of achieving that goal. It is not fair, however, to criticize the goal and then to condemn the COC when the Olympic teams perform poorly.

"Top 12 stifles development"

Some critics have argued that the top 12 standard actually hinders athletes from making it to the elite level. The argument goes like this; a young but promising athlete, not able to make the top 12 cut, is denied an opportunity to compete at the Olympics. Without the opportunity to appear on the big stage, the young athlete's development is slowed or perhaps cut off altogether.

If true, then this would mean that the COC policy is actually going to contribute to poorer team performance at future Olympics. Although there is some logic to this argument, it is (as far as I know) unsupported by any analysis. Personally, I think that the positive effects of this kind of experience are overstated; but more study of this issue is required. So, I am going to do some, and I will post the results here when it is complete. It is possible that there is a case to be made here.

"Top 12 didn't work"

Of course, Canada won only 12 medals at the 2004 Olympics. Many people, after the fact, will look at the medal table and conclude that the top 12 standard did not "work" in 2004. A closer look, however, reveals that the Canadian team was, in some ways, the best team that ever represented Canada. Canadians achieved more top 12 finishes and more top 8 finishes than ever before. It is not clear why this improved performance did not translate into an increased number of medals. I have some thoughts on this matter, and I am working on pulling some data together. It does deserve some more investigation.

In some cases the tough selection process is being used as an explanation for sub-par performances in Athens. For example, the swimming team did not perform well. Critics have noted that the final qualification opportunity was only five weeks before the Games, and that athletes who peaked for qualification had an unavoidable letdown in Athens. This probably is part of the reason for the poor performance in the pool, but I think that the root of this failure is poor management of the selection process. The timing of the selection events is partially in the control of the NSFs, and it is up to them to adjust their season schedule so that athletes can have the best possible preparation.

At any rate, as many people have pointed out in their criticisms of the policy, the application of a top 12 standard by itself cannot really be expected to lead to better performances. Cutting out the weakest athletes from the team will not logically improve the performances of the strongest athletes. What it does do, however, is allow a concentration of resources on those athletes with the best chances at medals. It reduced the cost of sending the Olympic team to Athens, which allows the COC to spend more money on the best of the best. This is one component of an overall shift towards a committment to high performance by the COC.