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If it was me, I'd just say whoever makes the score gets the spot.

http://www.thecouchgymnast.com/?p=7034

That is the risk the countries take.

They know very well that only two can qualify.

They want to maximize their opportunity at medals, so they take more people to get better changes at qualifying.

If you take more people that spots to hedge your bets, you end up with a real risk of having more people qualify than there are spots. I blame the US Olympic committee for sending more people than needed even though they knew the rule in advance more than the actual rule itself.

The thing that really bugs me is the fact that the best athletes are not the ones making the cut, but the top two from each country. Some of the ones knocked out of the competition had better scores than those moving on.

And that is the risk they run for making multiple people compete for limited spots. Run more people to hope for better scores means that you risk having more people qualify than there are spots.

I can't argue that they knew the risks going in, but I wish it was truly about finding and honoring the best athletes in the world.

But as much as it is a competition between athletes it is also a competition between countries. For a long time it has not been the best athletes against each other, it has been the best x athletes from country A against the best x athletes from country B.

There you have it, which brings back what you said earlier, and which I like, about a country flooding an Olympics with athletes.

I'd say send two primary qualifiers and two alternates in case the primaries can't compete in events like gymnastics and call it good.

How do other world championships handle the "x per country" rules?

I know many events have other world championships (track comes to mind), do they have similar restrictions?

Just wondering if there are other worldwide events that are more focused on the athletes and less on the nation they are competing for.

Relapse wrote:I can't argue that they knew the risks going in, but I wish it was truly about finding and honoring the best athletes in the world.

It's as much about nations as athletes. And frankly it'd be pretty dull if the final round of some gymnastic event was 3 Russians, 5 Chinese, 4 American and 1 other from, like, Poland or something. Having a range of nation competing is good, and while that means we don't see the third best athlete from one of the stronger countries, I think it's a fair trade.

What's weird is that the country cut off comes during the Olympics, not before the event. Like in the road race, each country is allowed 5 competitors from the start. Not as many races as you like, but once the first half of the race is over you have to cut it back to just your best five. It should be the same with every event, not 'take as many as you want, but no more than x competitors after this certain stage'.

Relapse wrote:If it was me, I'd just say whoever makes the score gets the spot.

http://www.thecouchgymnast.com/?p=7034

The thing is you might as well have the World Series of Olympic Events at that point, except it would be held in China every year with almost all Chinese people in in mostly watched by Chinese people, and maybe a few Canucks to handle the Moose rustling or whatever it is they do.

That would go against the two driving ships for the Olympics; the Corinthian spirit of sportsmanship and big money sponsorship (putting the M in Olympics for 30 years!).

@d-usa

You do realize that they have a cap on how many people can attempt to qualify right? That the qualifiers for the overall come from the already selected teams from the various countries (which themselves have already been heavily restricted to just 5 team members). So the US didn't throw more people in to get a better chance at qualifying. They had the same starting number as the other countries.

A person who is going to score 4th or 5th out of all the attempting qualifiers isn't going to compete. And she scored that score by .13.

Personally, I think it should be about the best athletes but understand the rule is to keep certain countries from running with the event. And I'd add that personally I think most of the outrage is coming out there because not only did the world champion miss by .13 and still score higher than several people qualifying but there were some scoring issues that didnt' make much sense either.

It should be three per country, with only two no nation can sweep the medals board and teams should not be artificially prohibited from doing so.

Some events teams are just superior at certain sports, their own nations arrange them that way. If they can sweep the board they should be allowed to do so under the rules.

atletes, I assume, are athletes that have to put their noses back on after a competition, like the girl in the photo in the link you posted.
But hey, there's only so much room in any sports track, you can't clog it.

Seems like it wouldn't matter if it was 2, or 3, or 5. #6, or #4, or #3 would still "almost make it". Arbitrary cutoffs will create that dynamic.

I wonder if the decision to go to 2 from 3 in 2000 was driven by a desire to fit more events or participating countries into a limited timeframe?

@Sourclams

I thought that there were still only 8 people competing in the event when it was 3 per country. So unless I'm wrong I don't think the change was to fit more events in. Could have been to fit more countries in though, which just makes medeling easier on the other competitors since they aren't competing against the best.

Don't forget that 1 of those 8 is reserved for the host country, whether they quality better than other participants or not.

Edit: I'm all for this rule, as hosting the Olympics is expensive as hell. You earned that perk, IMHO.

kronk wrote:Don't forget that 1 of those 8 is reserved for the host country, whether they quality better than other participants or not.

Edit: I'm all for this rule, as hosting the Olympics is expensive as hell. You earned that perk, IMHO.

I don't believe this is accurate. The host country gets an automatic spot for the qualification round (even if the country hadn't done well enough in international events to earn an Olympic spot at all), but they do not get an automatic pass to the finals.

Grakmar wrote:
I don't believe this is accurate. The host country gets an automatic spot for the qualification round (even if the country hadn't done well enough in international events to earn an Olympic spot at all), but they do not get an automatic pass to the finals.

Reading failure on my part. I thought we were discussing qualifiers, not finalists.