Active Expert: Gale Bernhardt

What are the odds the USA will lose a mens' starting position?

Gale Bernhardt — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 18:37:36 GMT

I received an email asking me what I thought the odds are that the USA men will lose a starting line position for triathlon at the Olympics.

Great question.

In yesterday's blog I outlined the current issue. Let me give you more information today.

I think there is a high likelihood that the USA will indeed lose that third men's slot this weekend. The big question is by how much.

I don't know what the Russian Olympic qualifying process entails, so there might be some intersquad rivalries that I'm unaware of, but if I were coaching that Russian team, I would make my team strategy to do whatever it takes to get Polyansky the most points possible. Yes, this means all of his country men setting him up in anyway possible for a win - or as close to that as possible. No one from Russia ought to cross the line ahead of him. Every Russian male athlete should be working for Polyanksy - and they should be rewarded within the country system for doing so.

Does the country system reward such team work in Russia? I don't know.

Looking ahead now to Madrid, requires some looking back in time. First know that Hunter does not have the maximum number of races that go into this year's rankings. This is a good thing and means it is easier for Hunter to make a points gap than it is for Polyansky to make a gap at this point. Any points Hunter scores adds to his total. Polyansky needs to place higher and score more points than in a previous race, to build his points gap. You can see this by looking at the Olympic Rankings chart.

When they have raced at the same race, only twice in recent past, Hunter has gotten the nod. Kemper/Polyansky at Des Moines 2007 and Beijing 2007: 172 to 92 and 201 to 117 respectively. On paper, Kemper is the faster athlete.

In Madrid, ignoring any individual goals, the USA is sending four men and Russia is sending three. It is in the best interest of each country to sacrifice any individual goals to get Kemper or Polyansky in the best positions possible.

While the battle above is going on, don't turn a blind eye to Australia and Switerland. As I mentioned before, the four countries are close in points.

If I was a betting gal, I'd bet the USA will lose the position at the Richard's Bay World Cup; but get it back in Madrid and keep it through World Championships. Of course, I'm assuming no crashes, injuries, etc. for Kemper.

Give me odds on that prediction...

An Olympic slot is on the line this weekend at Richard's Bay World Cup

Gale Bernhardt — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:29:02 GMT

Do you plan to watch the South African Richard's Bay World Cup online at the ITU website this weekend? Perhaps you should?

In the world of getting Olympic slots for your country, recall from my column about the qualification process that only eight countries will get three men and three women on the start line at the Olympic Games.

Which countries can send three athletes per gender is determined by the "2008 Olympic Qualification" document found on this page. Just select that document to read all of the gory details.

What it boils down to, is Hunter Kemper is currently our third place, USA ranked male and his ranking points total 2359. Complete rankings can be found by selecting the "2008 Beijing Olympic Qualification Rankings" document, found here. Know that the USA is currently the last country to qualify three men on the start line for the Olympic Games.

The country closest to taking that spot away at this weekend's Richard's Bay World Cup race is Russia, specifically Dmitri Polyansky. His current Olympic rank puts him a mere 53 points away from Hunter Kemper. Looking at the scores he's accumulated in his recent races (419, 379, 293, 252, 238, 221, 167, 126, 126) you can see it is completely possible for him to replace his lowest score with a good performance in Richard's Bay.

I have not tried to do the math to figure out what place he needs to get to score that 53 points, but the race point system can be found here by selecting "ITU Points Critera".

If the USA men lose that third slot, the only way to get it back is by Hunter having a solid race at Madrid World Cup. That start list can be found here or the ITU BG Vancouver World Championships June 8th. World Championships is the cut-off date for the Olympic qualification process.

The last country to earn thee starts at the Olympic Games, for the men, depends on the following gentlemen racing for their respective countries. They are all separated by a couple hundred points, as of 4/26/08:

Brendan Sexton - Australia (2507)

Oliver Marceau - Switzerland (2452)

Hunter Kemper - USA (2359)

Dmitri Polyansky - Russia (2306)

Know that all of these guys are on the start list for the Madrid World Cup, found here.

Unless Kemper can perform well, and keep his points higher than the men listed above, we won't need to worry about qualifying a third man to the Olympics at the Des Moines World Cup race.

Stay tuned....