Slushy Chunks: "Them's the Rules, Sucker!!!"
Coach: "I'm sorry, you didn't make the team after all. I guess we didn't read the rules carefully enough."
Skater: "But I won my class at the Nationals! Isn't that what I was supposed to do?"
Coach: "No, look. It's right here in the 136th issue of Slushy Chunks, Page 5, fine print: 'Any skater under the age of 18 and 7/8ths, who skates faster than 1:39 in the 1000 meter time trial, held at midnight on the night of a full moon, with her underwear over her helmet, qualifies for Category One Status.'"
Skater: "I thought it said to wear the underwear over the skinsuit!!! Besides, what does any of this have to do with my ability to compete in short track speed skating?"
Coach: "Tough luck. Maybe you'll be more careful next time. All MY skaters knew what they had to do. Besides, aren't you 18 and 15/16ths years old already?"
-----
Here's a sad story from the world of Short Track that I wish could have turned out differently, but I don't know how it could have. Lindsay Appuglise barely missed qualifying for the Top 16, who go on to compete for World Cup and Category One spots. So, she went on to skate the Intermediate category of the age-group Nationals, believing that if she won that group, she had another chance to make Category One. As it turned out, only the winners of the Juvenile and Junior classes in that meet got to earn Cat I status, but Lindsay didn't find that out until weeks after the event was over. Apparently, there was also a time standard of 1:39 for Senior Women in the 1000 meters. She was not aware of that, either.
It didn't matter that she broke a record in the 3000 meters that had stood for 10 years. It didn't matter that she beat a current Category One skater in that competition. The only thing that mattered was some nit-picky rule written down in some issue of Ice Chips. So, Lindsay and her friends went online and dug deep into their recycling containers to find the issue of Ice Chips that contained the rule. Sure enough, it was there.
Who is to blame for the failure of this information to be passed on? I hear that there was an elite athlete meeting that took place before the Nationals began. Shouldn't the qualification standards have been discussed in detail with the athletes at that meeting? Or maybe it was the responsibility of Lindsay's coach to look up the qualification standards. Maybe so, but that information should be made much more accessible than to be buried in some random issue of Ice Chips. I suppose the final responsibility falls on Lindsay herself -- and we'll just have to say that she got burned and maybe next time she will learn from this oversight. How cruel.
Will there even be a "next time" for Lindsay Appuglise? Who can say if she will even stick around. I know what this girl has to go through in order to speedskate. She moved to Southern California to train with Wilma Boomstra because Wilma is one of the best (if not THE best) short track technique coaches in the world. Lindsay has no means of support other than her own working hours, and life is very expensive in Orange County. With all her struggles, she has made exceptional improvement in the past season, and the decision to deny her Cat I status must have been a slap in the face.
"We have to go by the rules. Otherwise, people will accuse us of favoritism." This is what I was told when I faced a similar situation. (Favoritism? U.S. Speedskating? No!!! Who would ever accuse them of that?)
I had pretty much blocked this episode from my memory, for my own good, but Lindsay's story brought it up again. It reminded me of how close I had actually come to making World Cups during that year I was overtrained. At the US Nationals, I had earned a World Cup spot in the 3000 meters but had to skate a qualifying time of 4:23 in order to go. Before the Regional Qualifier for the World Allrounds, my coach came up to me and said, "You know, Eva, it WOULD BE NICE if you could skate that qualifying time in Calgary this weekend."
Yes, I agreed, it "would be nice." A good 3000-meter time "would be nice" in that it would help my Samalog score and improve my chances of making the Worlds. Well, that weekend was a terrible weekend of racing for me, and, knowing I was worn out, I took the whole next week off and planned to skate a qualifying time back in SLC the following Saturday. I did it, with a 4:20.
Afterwards, the coach came up to me and said, "Why did you do that, Eva? Didn't you know that last weekend was THE DEADLINE for making the qualifying time for World Cups?"
No, not really. "It would be nice" sounds a lot different than, "This weekend is the deadline." It didn't matter. I got burned, and I learned never to trust a coach to pass the rules on to me.
---
Next, I'd like to address some issues that are more specific to this short track competition. First of all, why is there a loophole enabling the first place finishers in the Juvenile and Junior categories to make Category I, but this is denied to highly competitive Intermediate skaters? After all, an up-and-coming 22-year-old still has many years of good skating ahead of her.
Second, why is there a time standard imposed for ANY kind of short track team selection? I understand that this is a quick and easy way of picking the Top 16 for the skate-off, but for any final team selection, it does not make sense. Short track is a pack-style sport involving tactics and physical placement. When you are trying to win an overall competition, you have to not only budget your energy throughout a series of heats and finals, but you also have to gauge your competition and adjust your pace accordingly. This is not necessarily the situation that yields the fastest times.
As far as I know, the 1000 meter short track time trial is not an Olympic discipline. Besides, we sent a person to the last Olympics who had a blazing fast 1000 meter time trial but was utterly incapable of racing with multiple people on the line and, if I remember correctly, didn't even make it out of a single heat.
---
I guess Lindsay's story really affected me because her struggles in this sport remind me of my own. Athletes who have had a hard time have different reactions to the stories of others who are coming up. My immediate reaction is to want to help someone in this situation, but I know of others whose knee-jerk reaction is, "They must suffer as I have suffered." We seem to have a lot of those types hanging around in positions of power these days. They know who they are...
Coach: "I'm sorry, you didn't make the team after all. I guess we didn't read the rules carefully enough."
Skater: "But I won my class at the Nationals! Isn't that what I was supposed to do?"
Coach: "No, look. It's right here in the 136th issue of Slushy Chunks, Page 5, fine print: 'Any skater under the age of 18 and 7/8ths, who skates faster than 1:39 in the 1000 meter time trial, held at midnight on the night of a full moon, with her underwear over her helmet, qualifies for Category One Status.'"
Skater: "I thought it said to wear the underwear over the skinsuit!!! Besides, what does any of this have to do with my ability to compete in short track speed skating?"
Coach: "Tough luck. Maybe you'll be more careful next time. All MY skaters knew what they had to do. Besides, aren't you 18 and 15/16ths years old already?"
-----
Here's a sad story from the world of Short Track that I wish could have turned out differently, but I don't know how it could have. Lindsay Appuglise barely missed qualifying for the Top 16, who go on to compete for World Cup and Category One spots. So, she went on to skate the Intermediate category of the age-group Nationals, believing that if she won that group, she had another chance to make Category One. As it turned out, only the winners of the Juvenile and Junior classes in that meet got to earn Cat I status, but Lindsay didn't find that out until weeks after the event was over. Apparently, there was also a time standard of 1:39 for Senior Women in the 1000 meters. She was not aware of that, either.
It didn't matter that she broke a record in the 3000 meters that had stood for 10 years. It didn't matter that she beat a current Category One skater in that competition. The only thing that mattered was some nit-picky rule written down in some issue of Ice Chips. So, Lindsay and her friends went online and dug deep into their recycling containers to find the issue of Ice Chips that contained the rule. Sure enough, it was there.
Who is to blame for the failure of this information to be passed on? I hear that there was an elite athlete meeting that took place before the Nationals began. Shouldn't the qualification standards have been discussed in detail with the athletes at that meeting? Or maybe it was the responsibility of Lindsay's coach to look up the qualification standards. Maybe so, but that information should be made much more accessible than to be buried in some random issue of Ice Chips. I suppose the final responsibility falls on Lindsay herself -- and we'll just have to say that she got burned and maybe next time she will learn from this oversight. How cruel.
Will there even be a "next time" for Lindsay Appuglise? Who can say if she will even stick around. I know what this girl has to go through in order to speedskate. She moved to Southern California to train with Wilma Boomstra because Wilma is one of the best (if not THE best) short track technique coaches in the world. Lindsay has no means of support other than her own working hours, and life is very expensive in Orange County. With all her struggles, she has made exceptional improvement in the past season, and the decision to deny her Cat I status must have been a slap in the face.
"We have to go by the rules. Otherwise, people will accuse us of favoritism." This is what I was told when I faced a similar situation. (Favoritism? U.S. Speedskating? No!!! Who would ever accuse them of that?)
I had pretty much blocked this episode from my memory, for my own good, but Lindsay's story brought it up again. It reminded me of how close I had actually come to making World Cups during that year I was overtrained. At the US Nationals, I had earned a World Cup spot in the 3000 meters but had to skate a qualifying time of 4:23 in order to go. Before the Regional Qualifier for the World Allrounds, my coach came up to me and said, "You know, Eva, it WOULD BE NICE if you could skate that qualifying time in Calgary this weekend."
Yes, I agreed, it "would be nice." A good 3000-meter time "would be nice" in that it would help my Samalog score and improve my chances of making the Worlds. Well, that weekend was a terrible weekend of racing for me, and, knowing I was worn out, I took the whole next week off and planned to skate a qualifying time back in SLC the following Saturday. I did it, with a 4:20.
Afterwards, the coach came up to me and said, "Why did you do that, Eva? Didn't you know that last weekend was THE DEADLINE for making the qualifying time for World Cups?"
No, not really. "It would be nice" sounds a lot different than, "This weekend is the deadline." It didn't matter. I got burned, and I learned never to trust a coach to pass the rules on to me.
---
Next, I'd like to address some issues that are more specific to this short track competition. First of all, why is there a loophole enabling the first place finishers in the Juvenile and Junior categories to make Category I, but this is denied to highly competitive Intermediate skaters? After all, an up-and-coming 22-year-old still has many years of good skating ahead of her.
Second, why is there a time standard imposed for ANY kind of short track team selection? I understand that this is a quick and easy way of picking the Top 16 for the skate-off, but for any final team selection, it does not make sense. Short track is a pack-style sport involving tactics and physical placement. When you are trying to win an overall competition, you have to not only budget your energy throughout a series of heats and finals, but you also have to gauge your competition and adjust your pace accordingly. This is not necessarily the situation that yields the fastest times.
As far as I know, the 1000 meter short track time trial is not an Olympic discipline. Besides, we sent a person to the last Olympics who had a blazing fast 1000 meter time trial but was utterly incapable of racing with multiple people on the line and, if I remember correctly, didn't even make it out of a single heat.
---
I guess Lindsay's story really affected me because her struggles in this sport remind me of my own. Athletes who have had a hard time have different reactions to the stories of others who are coming up. My immediate reaction is to want to help someone in this situation, but I know of others whose knee-jerk reaction is, "They must suffer as I have suffered." We seem to have a lot of those types hanging around in positions of power these days. They know who they are...
posted by Eva at 8:49 AM
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