I’m a bit disgruntled on some of the statements by Rutger Smith, who is responsible for internatonal level Flemish Athletes, but is shifting blame to the athletes themselves.
His criticism: No 6 medals, wrong priority of athletes and “lack of focus”.
**Lack of focus**: for many it was their first international competition. According to Rutger Smith, the limits should be harsher so… younger athletes can’t gain experience and this will lead to more focus? Something like that. I don’t get the logic, but, hey, Rutger will know best.
**Wrong priority**: Yes, if you prioritize medals on a continental championship above a good showing on global championships, he’s right. I doubt a lot of athletes will agree. Nevermind that there’s still some spillover from Covid, since usually these championships are split (one each year instead of Worlds & European in the same year).
**No 6 medals**: Let’s look at the stats. Mind you: due to the Worlds, some top athletes didn’t participate and this gives a few wrong results since I used the European ranking, but generally most top athletes participated + long distances did a direct final, so I used their ranking that counted as a final, semi-final or whatever.
This was the expectation, according to the rankings (note: I did not include the relay teams since they have no ranking):
I assume Rutger counted one or two medals for the relays. Where would the others come from? One from Thiam (1st in ranking) and one from Kimeli (2nd in ranking 10,000m). Maybe one from Vidts (4th on ranking), maybe from Broeders (4th on ranking) maybe from Naert (8th on ranking but defending champion) and maybe from Watrin (6th on ranking).
Anyway, as you see: 6 medals was pretty ambitious. Not impossible, but everything should have gone right.
So Rutger “Het is er niet helemaal uitgekomen” Smith: while it was certainly not a great championship, you can’t really say expectations weren’t met. Your optimistic expectation was not met.
Thanks for reading this pointless rant (also Sporza, please get commentators that can read or pay attention).
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I’m a bit disgruntled on some of the statements by Rutger Smith, who is responsible for internatonal level Flemish Athletes, but is shifting blame to the athletes themselves.
His criticism: No 6 medals, wrong priority of athletes and “lack of focus”.
**Lack of focus**: for many it was their first international competition. According to Rutger Smith, the limits should be harsher so… younger athletes can’t gain experience and this will lead to more focus? Something like that. I don’t get the logic, but, hey, Rutger will know best.
**Wrong priority**: Yes, if you prioritize medals on a continental championship above a good showing on global championships, he’s right. I doubt a lot of athletes will agree. Nevermind that there’s still some spillover from Covid, since usually these championships are split (one each year instead of Worlds & European in the same year).
**No 6 medals**: Let’s look at the stats. Mind you: due to the Worlds, some top athletes didn’t participate and this gives a few wrong results since I used the European ranking, but generally most top athletes participated + long distances did a direct final, so I used their ranking that counted as a final, semi-final or whatever.
This was the expectation, according to the rankings (note: I did not include the relay teams since they have no ranking):
https://i.imgur.com/ccihw8O.png (Made one mistake: add 1 to final)
I assume Rutger counted one or two medals for the relays. Where would the others come from? One from Thiam (1st in ranking) and one from Kimeli (2nd in ranking 10,000m). Maybe one from Vidts (4th on ranking), maybe from Broeders (4th on ranking) maybe from Naert (8th on ranking but defending champion) and maybe from Watrin (6th on ranking).
Anyway, as you see: 6 medals was pretty ambitious. Not impossible, but everything should have gone right.
Now, reality (excluding relays):
https://i.imgur.com/DNhFQ71.png (made one mistake: add 1 to final)
So Rutger “Het is er niet helemaal uitgekomen” Smith: while it was certainly not a great championship, you can’t really say expectations weren’t met. Your optimistic expectation was not met.
Thanks for reading this pointless rant (also Sporza, please get commentators that can read or pay attention).