Sometimes, life is meant to be easy: By Len Johnson

When the IAAF published the London 2012 qualifying standards on behalf of the IOC, Athletics Australia immediately told Australian marathoners: “Go faster.”

Before either announcement, Marty Dent joined Jeff Hunt in having run what the international body considers an A-standard at the marathon but Athletics Australia does not. In a case of double jeopardy, the IAAF considers Dent qualified on two grounds, both of which are ignored by AA.

First, let’s look at the details. The IAAF A-standard is two hours 15 minutes for men and 2:37 for women. Athletics Australia lifted this to 2:12 and 2:32.

Since the qualifying period opened (on 1 January this year), Hunt has run 2:13:14 in Beppu, Shelley 2:11:38 in London and 2:11:23 in Amsterdam. Now Dent has run 2:12:23 in Fukuoka.

On the women’s side, Lisa Weightman ran 2:29:23 in Franfurt. No-one else has beaten 2:37, much less 2:32.

Shelley and Dent have the added qualification – in IAAF eyes, anyway – of a top-10 finish in a Gold Label race. The IAAF awards road races gold, silver and bronze labels depending on criteria such as prize money, athlete support, etc and regards a top-10 finish in a Gold Label marathon as the equivalent of an A-standard. AA does not recognise this in its London 2012 nomination criteria either.

London and Fukuoka are among the Gold Label marathons. Shelley was 10th in London, which doesn’t matter so much as he has met AA’s standard as well, but poor Marty Dent qualified both by time and place in Fukuoka but AA accepts neither criterion.

Obviously, Australia has no control over the IAAF standards – so athletes falling arbitrarily either side of 2:15 and 2:37 are either qualified or not.

But our own standards are in our control and a wise policy would vary them in line with circumstances. There may yet be further qualifiers (please!), but as things stand, we are faced with making an unnecessary choice (my emphasis) between three athletes of similar performance.

Michael Shelley, Jeff Hunt and Martin Dent have met on many occasions over different distances on road, track and cross-country. I don’t know about anyone else, but I wouldn’t want to nominate which one of them would beat the other two on any given day. Yet that is precisely the position into which AA’s meddling with the standards is likely to force its selectors in a few months time.

It might be different if one was clearly ahead of the other two – a 2:06 runners versus mere qualifiers. My personal view – which I’ve argued in this forum, and others, for a long time - is that I would still select all qualified athletes.

But, as it stands, and may still stand if nothing changes by the time a final decision has to be made, we will be picking one athlete when we could choose three of similar ability, thus maximising the chances of getting a good result. Madness.

The next question is whether Australia should change the marathon standard at all. As I have understood it, the argument is that a 2:15/2:37 marathoner is not world-class whereas all other A-qualified athletes are (the marathon is the only standard regularly adjusted). 

I think that would be hard to sustain in the light of actual results. Running the current IAAF A-standard (2:15) in the men’s marathon would have placed an athlete in the top 20 at the past four global championships – 20th in Daegu was 2:16:41, in Berlin 2:15:40, in Beijing 2:15:00 and in Osaka 2:22:50.

Dent went to Berlin with a 2:14:46 personal best, ran 2:16:04, and finished 21st.

These numbers compare favourably with the men’s 400 where running the A-standard would have ranked 14th in the semi-finals in Osaka, 18th in Beijing and 12th in Berlin. In Daegu, it would have made the final, though Daegu, with its dismal standard in the men’s individual and high standard in the 4x400, may turn out to be an aberration.

A reasonable case can be mounted that Australia should not change the marathon standard at all, and certainly not in a way that has the potential to lock our selectors into a difficult position.

Our general selection policies have improved markedly over the past 20 years, but we can’t shake the habit of making things harder for ourselves by taking inflexible positions which then lead to undesirable outcomes.