USA Olympic selection process change

[FruitLoop]

Why do it that way, if a player is WR ? They shouldn't be afraid of competition. No one would complain about full
competition for all the spots, then no controversy.

Because you are more likely to take your best team that way. One off trials can have upsets.

I think trials should be done more extensively like mass round robins and things to reduce variance also. Knock out is no good to determine something as important as an Olympic place.

 

[FruitLoop]

China chose Zhang Jike despite his having the lower world ranking than Fan Zhendong and Xu Xin. Fan Zhendonf qualified by ranking but they replaced him with Zhang Jike no questions asked. They even took Xu Xin for 3rd spot over Fan who was ranked #2 behind Ma Long and who came second in trials qualification to Ma Long.

Yes, USA is backward for taking coach selection over trial and ranking. So is China, the best TT nation in the world.

China has such depth they can do what the hell they like. Like leave out Ma Long when he was the best player in the world.

 

[Loopadoop]

China has such depth they can do what the hell they like. Like leave out Ma Long when he was the best player in the world.

China is competing for medals, the USA is not.

We also don't know how much China uses the team concept in tour tournaments. Internal competition might be different at a given point in time.

The aspiring USA players train all over the nation by different coaches, different than CNT.

The USA prides itself on being a Democracy.

Free qualifying competition should prevail.

 

[Der_Echte]

I don't think politics and sports should ever mix.

PS, i understand the important of development to the "previous disadvantage communities", but I am against discrimination of any kind

Haha Tony, you after my own heart... but man... if you were the Asian smart dude are now, but were college age trying to get into our most prestigious Universities in USA... hahahahahaha you would really hate on them... even if you were 2-3x as smart and higher entrance test scores/achievements/whatever... you have lower chance, because of your origin.

These Unis are actively turning away more qualified people all the time now.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

But what I don't like is people pretending that what is happening is some special evidence of US bigotry in TT when it is almost the same everywhere.

Same everywhere?
Tokyo Olympics is less than 2 years away when this change was made.
Tell me, which other country has selection of 66.67% of the team?
Please go from Championship division down, don't start from the lowest rank team

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

China is competing for medals, the USA is not.

We also don't know how much China uses the team concept in tour tournaments. Internal competition might be different at a given point in time.

The aspiring USA players train all over the nation by different coaches, different than CNT.

The USA prides itself on being a Democracy.

Free qualifying competition should prevail.

should one become more democratic with human rights and fair law
or should one become more communist and follow the right leader to become the next general

USA prides itself to be world leaders,
The same former German coach tried it in german womens team and got setback.
I wonder if he will have the same fate by doing the same thing in USA

As a coach and if I was the head coach/selector, I would love to have full control, but this isn't a business and I'm not the CEO
this is a public organization and everything must be fair
Even if it was fair and end up selecting the wrong person, that fair is what freedom is about I guess.

 

[lightspin]

I overheard today, and I am fairly confident of the sources, that the initial plan was to have 100% of the team chosen with no trials. After being told what a storm of controversy this would cause, the HPD decided to just pick 2 players and have 1 position determined by the trials. I am not a fan of the direction things are headed. Even if this does produce a few gold medals in 2024, is sacrificing fairness worth it?

 

[Loopadoop]

I overheard today, and I am fairly confident of the sources, that the initial plan was to have 100% of the team chosen with no trials. After being told what a storm of controversy this would cause, the HPD decided to just pick 2 players and have 1 position determined by the trials. I am not a fan of the direction things are headed. Even if this does produce a few gold medals in 2024, is sacrificing fairness worth it ?

Ridiculous, the selectors could get their pockets filled.

If some players are significantly better than others they should not worry about competing in the trials. The fact they want to arbitrarily pick 2 of the 3 tells me that there may not be that much of a difference in skill levels, therefore it should be an open competion.

Speculation on 2024 is unrealistic based on past history, irrelevant now.

 

[Loopadoop]

Current Women Olympic eligible

8 who are rated from 2440 - 2616 would be the favorites

Jiaqi Zheng is not included but could play

What is the problem with trials to determine who gets the 3 spots ?

 

[Loopadoop]

Current Men Citizens Olympic eligible

18 who are rated 2512 - 2732 would be the favorites

What is the problem with trials to determine who gets the 3 spots ?

 

[Harryleo]

Tempers flared in San Jose after 26-year-old Ross Miner was left off the 2018 Olympic team despite finishing second at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships on the strength of to a technically impressive, crowd-pleasing skate to a medley of songs by Queen.Miner wasn’t expected to do so well. After three straight top-three finishes at nationals between 2011 and 2013, he failed to secure an Olympic berth for Sochi after finishing seventh in 2014. Miner has languished below the top tier of U.S. men ever since — until Saturday, when he executed the skate of his life.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

The American dream told by many blessed Americans, living the Dream!
Hope, that the generation after you has a easier path!
Hope, that the generation after you can achieve more then you!
Hope, that if you work hard the only thing that can stop you is you. Not a coach, or a selection committee, or HPD.
The current USATT National Team qualification procedure for the 2020 Pam am games and Olympic Games are not in the idea of fair sport.
Hope, that the beautiful sport of table tennis stays available and true to everyone, not just the insiders...
Having made numerous Olympic and National teams between us, qualifying by trials only, We can’t believe this is even a discussion. Scary thinking about how this happened!
Hope, we all find happiness, though fair play, transparency, and honesty
Peace
Voice of the Athletes
Written by Barney Reed

 

[JesperStef]

Same everywhere?
Tokyo Olympics is less than 2 years away when this change was made.
Tell me, which other country has selection of 66.67% of the team?
Please go from Championship division down, don't start from the lowest rank team

I actually believe that trials are VERY seldom used for selections here in Europe. I am not aware of what goes on in all European countries, but at least in Sweden, Germany and Denmark the squads are usually just nominated by the federations/national team coaches. A few times I have heard of ONE spot for World or European Championships being decided by trials or specific international results, but in general nominations rule!

Maybe some of our other European forum members know how selections are generally made in their countries?

Also, are you sure that the majority of the “big” Asian countries spots for the Olympics are actually selected by trials?

I’m not certain about this but I believe that China usually do not have trials for the Olympics - just for WTTC and WTTTC? And that the two singles players from Japan and South Korea have often been selected due to World Ranking?

Again, I’m not sure that I’m right. But I’m not sure that you’re right either...?

 

[JesperStef]

Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but with the “former” trial system, were there any way to qualify if you were injured at the time of the trials?

 

[Der_Echte]

The American dream told by many blessed Americans, living the Dream!
Hope, that the generation after you has a easier path!
Hope, that the generation after you can achieve more then you!
Hope, that if you work hard the only thing that can stop you is you. Not a coach, or a selection committee, or HPD.
The current USATT National Team qualification procedure for the 2020 Pam am games and Olympic Games are not in the idea of fair sport.
Hope, that the beautiful sport of table tennis stays available and true to everyone, not just the insiders...
Having made numerous Olympic and National teams between us, qualifying by trials only, We can’t believe this is even a discussion. Scary thinking about how this happened!
Hope, we all find happiness, though fair play, transparency, and honesty
Peace
Voice of the Athletes
Written by Barney Reed

I had met and played vs Barney and talked with him several times since I moved to California.

Barney Reed is a Trouble Maker. A bonafide legit First Class trouble maker.

Anyone knowing what (positive) I define as a Trouble Maker will know that is usually a good thing.

Some of the defining attitudes Barney has is bringing light onto the very delusional, ineffective, and shady "good ole boy" practices of USATT, our national governing body.

One great example is the USATT leadership fretting over how to grow the sport. Barney frequently and loudly champions an approach of creating an agreement with the distributors of TT tables sold or delivered in USA... to include in the TT table packaging a USATT membership form, a short guide to amateur table tennis, and how/where to find clubs or higher level of competition.

There are well over 250,000 units of TT table sold in US EVERY YEAR. Even with a sorry-azz 2-3% join ratio, that is an IMMEDIATE $400,000 - $500,000 ANNUAL INCREASE in membership revenue... that doesn't include TOURNEY fees, which inevitably some would do.. that is another $50,000 a year conservative beginning number...

USATT doesn't make a whole lot more that that in one year from membership dues (if even that)... and would be CRIMINALLY STUPID not to consider and act upon such an obvious chance to immediately double (and 10x in a few years down the road) that a friggin' 5 year old could see. USATT runs itself way worse than the worst episodes of DILBERT where the leaders of the company Dilbert works at really act like they are total drunk monkey morons. If I was Chairman of the board of directors of a company that REFUSED to consider and pursue legal methods of immediately doubling business income, I would fire the CEO, President, and every exec I could place hands on faster than Trump hisself could say Ur-Fired !!

This is one of the ways Barney is a Trouble Maker... and a damn good one. Barney told me that idea last year and how it went nowhere.

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

The OP has the title as Olympic selection,but if one looks further, this is not just for olympic, but the current Pan-An tournament. so the announcement was made 3 months before this tournament.

On the subject of Olympics
Firstly here is the ITTF qualification:
https://cdn.dosb.de/user_upload/Oly...onskriterien/ITTF_-_Table_Tennis_20180522.pdf


England, since the players are world ranked, they are invited to European qualification tournaments (TTE can reject the invitation)
The 2 players qualified, and then BOA confirms they are selected in 2016 for example
https://tabletennisengland.co.uk/news/archived/drinkhall-and-pitchford-selected-for-rio-olympics/

I've heard of players qualified in other countries (NZ, RSA etc) but then the national body refuse to send the player - huge uproar.

For world ranked players, especially in Europe and Asia, where there is a lot of world rank players, some are "forced injured" as we have seen in the likes of CNT.
For some countries, it is national ranking players that are selected to go to these qualifications (I am not sure if there are forced injuries in your media freedom countries)

Some countries might not have trials, as your 1 and 2 are medal contenders - and default also ranked 1 and 2 in the country - IE Dima And Timo.

But ranking is not coaches selection - this ranking "rule" is set in the Olympic selection.
USA is not using trials, is not using ranking, it is using human discretion

In weaker countries, there are trials to represent your countries to go to the continental championships (direct qualification)
Again, there is way too many countries out there, I do not know a lot of them, Jesperstef, how does Denmark work?

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

I had met and played vs Barney and talked with him several times since I moved to California.

Barney Reed is a Trouble Maker. A bonafide legit First Class trouble maker.

Anyone knowing what (positive) I define as a Trouble Maker will know that is usually a good thing.

Some of the defining attitudes Barney has is bringing light onto the very delusional, ineffective, and shady "good ole boy" practices of USATT, our national governing body.

One great example is the USATT leadership fretting over how to grow the sport. Barney frequently and loudly champions an approach of creating an agreement with the distributors of TT tables sold or delivered in USA... to include in the TT table packaging a USATT membership form, a short guide to amateur table tennis, and how/where to find clubs or higher level of competition.

There are well over 250,000 units of TT table sold in US EVERY YEAR. Even with a sorry-azz 2-3% join ratio, that is an IMMEDIATE $400,000 - $500,000 ANNUAL INCREASE in membership revenue... that doesn't include TOURNEY fees, which inevitably some would do.. that is another $50,000 a year conservative beginning number...

USATT doesn't make a whole lot more that that in one year from membership dues (if even that)... and would be CRIMINALLY STUPID not to consider and act upon such an obvious chance to immediately double (and 10x in a few years down the road) that a friggin' 5 year old could see. USATT runs itself way worse than the worst episodes of DILBERT where the leaders of the company Dilbert works at really act like they are total drunk monkey morons. If I was Chairman of the board of directors of a company that REFUSED to consider and pursue legal methods of immediately doubling business income, I would fire the CEO, President, and every exec I could place hands on faster than Trump hisself could say Ur-Fired !!

This is one of the ways Barney is a Trouble Maker... and a damn good one. Barney told me that idea last year and how it went nowhere.

Wow, USA is a big market.
I didn't realise the numbers are so huge..... no wonder the Joola USA agent can buy Joola out

With 250k of tables, that means there are millions of table tennis players (from basement to national)
Then what USATT is doing in terms of ground work is far lacking.

This time last year, I was in Taiwan.
Stiga's international director was in Taiwan too, so we met up.
The local Stiga agent too the director to a few of they sponsored clubs and also witness Taipei (city)'s primary school championship. Of which over 6000 primary school kids entered (at the same time all the cities had they own tournament, I wasn't sure what is the national number.

The director told me he has not seen such huge amount of high level U10/U13 kids in such numbers other than China.

I'm not even sure if Taiwan sells close to 250k tables a year..... maybe 1/10 I would say

 

[Loopadoop]

How did the organization get this rule changed while they are in between CEO leadership ?

 

[Tony's Table Tennis]

How did the organization get this rule changed while they are in between CEO leadership ?

From my understanding USATT did not change this rule
A sub committee (HPC, together with the HPD) are the ones that have full rights of national team selections.
this committee is the one that changed the rules
Some USATT board members found out of the change in the media

 

[JesperStef]

In weaker countries, there are trials to represent your countries to go to the continental championships (direct qualification)
Again, there is way too many countries out there, Jesperstef, how does Denmark work?

I think over the last 20 years there have been 1 or maybe 2 trials for European or World Championships - and only for the LAST available spot AFTER the coaches selected the other players. So here nominations by the federation/coaches are definately the norm.

I’m pretty sure that the same is the case in Sweden and Germany - maybe to a slightly leaser degree?

I have no idea if there are any traditions for trials in Eastern Europe? I’ve noticed the Russia doesn’t always send their “strongest” players to World/European Championships, but I don’t know whether this is due to injuries, trials or nominations?