Thursday, September 24, 2009

Just about finished

Well road is almost over all we have left now is the relays. It's been a strange Worlds if you ask me, the strangest i've been apart of. We've gotten a pretty good amount of medals and with different people which doesn't always happen but we've done pretty good this year.

There is a lot of people questioning the selection of races and there will only be more once everyone gets home but i don't really know what to say. I know what I really want to say but that's no good so i'll try to explain my view on the idea. This is my third worlds and I have never seen someone denied a race that skated every drill, every practice, and genuinely gave 100%. Personally, I believe that nothing should be guaranteed to anyone. I don't believe making the world team warrants the privilege to race at all especially because tryouts are three months before Worlds. I understand the PARENTS pay 4k to send their child to worlds but they is with expectation that they are giving 100% and that their child respects them enough to continue training. But I'm just curious, if you are a parent that is forking out all this money and after tryouts your child has not picked up their training at all or even maintained their training then why do you pay it? Why send them?

One thing that maybe should be revisited is the selection process. I think that in theory our selection process is very, very good but that does not make it perfect. I think the world team should be 4-6 skaters but should not be a set number. I say this because: if four skaters are top four in everything (sprints, distance, track, road) then you don't need five and six. But if one guy is the best sprinter, and one guy is the best distance, then a different one is the best track and the best road that's where I think it gets iffy. You want the fastest track, road, sprinter, and (two) distance skaters but the problem is that they overlap so much. If there was never overlaps then we would never have a problem with our selection criteria.

On a completely different note I think a code of conduct might be appropriate. Or a list of what types of behavior is appropriate overseas. Maybe something that if is broken can result that skater being finished for the remainder of the championships or sent home... I don't know but definitely food for thought.

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