t-and-f: The Trials

[Ed Grant]

Netters:           The Olympic Trials have gone through many stages in my experience and there were other formats before that far away date.           I find the present system OK except for one thing: the selection of a site. IMHO, this should be doe with some consideration of the weather conditions to be faced at the Olympics. In 2004, for example, let's get as hot a place as possible--Athens will be boiling at that time of the year. This year, we were lucky that Sacramento was cooler than expected, so we sort of lucked out. It shouldn't be too warm in Sydney next month.           One proviso, however: Given the state of US distance running, there should be several races run in ideal conditions, longf enough before the trials, for all the contenders to get that AT quaklifier, then just worry about position at the trials if they are being held in warm climate.               The marathon, given the fact that there is little or no chance for a makeup event afterwards, should always be in ideal conditions, or as ideal as can be hoped for (weather has a way of surporising us).               There are always going to be a couple of casualties at the Trials, but it's like Winston Churchill said about democracy, it may have its faults, but anything else would be much worse. SAnd let'sstop referring to Maurice Greene as a casualty. They could have run the trials eight times and he wouldn't have made it in the 200.                                                                         Ed Grant