S’pore Athletics may tweak Olympics wildcard selection criteria

SINGAPORE — After months of contention by the Singapore national track and field athletes on the Singapore Athletics’ (SA) 2016 Olympics wildcard selection criteria, its Vice-President (training and selection) C Kunalan said on Wednesday (June 22) that the criteria could be changed radically.

With about six weeks to go to the 2016 Games — and just 11 days before the SA needs to submit the names of its top athletes for the wildcard to the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) — Kunalan told TODAY that the current criteria “may not be the most accurate” benchmarks to determine the wildcard spot.

The current criteria take into consideration, first, national record breakers during the selection period (January 2015 — July 2016), with the next level of consideration being 2015 South-east Asian (SEA) Games gold medallists. Athletes who have been to past Olympic Games via a wildcard will also not be eligible.

According to Kunalan, the criteria should have been set such that the athletes whose results are closest to the Olympics qualifying mark in their respective events — via calculating “percentage each athlete’s performance is from the Olympics qualifying mark” — should be given foremost consideration.

SEA Games gold medallists should also be given priority over national record breakers, he added.

“The current criteria may not give us the ‘best’ athlete for the wildcard spot. There is a problem now, and I am hoping the whole committee will say, let’s relook it,” said Kunalan. “Me, as VP of training and selection, I failed to take a more serious approach on this (at the time) when passing the criteria, (but) I also expected everybody else from the management committee to give their views.

“Regardless the critieria is changed or not, one party is going to get hurt — the most deserving athlete who should have been chosen, or the most eligible athletes based on the current criteria now.”

As it stands now, national race-walker Edmund Sim, hurdler Ang Chen Xiang, and marathoner Soh Rui Yong are the top three athletes who may be chosen for the wildcard spot, in that order.

According to Kunalan, if the criteria is amended to first consider athletes’ results in comparison to the Olympics qualifying marks — with athletes who have been to the Games on wildcard also eligible — the top athletes who are in line for the wildcard this year would be sprinter Calvin Kang, marathoner Mok Ying Ren, and 200m runner Naqib Asmin.

In a Skype interview from the United States on Wednesday, Soh said the athlete to represent Singapore should be someone who is able to hold his own on the world stage, and that the SA has failed to create a set of criteria that will select this ideal candidate.

“There should be a better criteria. It is not holistic — only considering one factor which is national records, but not (performance at) major competitions, or which athletes go closest to the (Olympic) standards,” said the marathoner, whose personal best of 2:26.01 is still shy of the 2:19 needed to qualify.

“If you are going to say national record breaker and SEA Games gold medallists, I am the only one.

“Edmund is chopping minutes off his record because he is the first competitive race-walker, which is great for Singapore. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that breaking a national record by one of two minutes mean you are good enough to compete on the world stage.

“And I think that’s the issue right now — we need to send an athlete who is best equipped to compete on the Olympics level, preferably someone who is able to carry on to qualify for the Olympics in the future.

“Why are we wasting this opportunity to give someone an experience that will be valuable to their future development?”