BELL LAP #30

SHOULD WE COPY THE CANADIANS? (August 23, 2000)

Donovan Bailey pulled a muscle during a 100-meter race in Stockholm on August 1, an injury that kept the 1996 Olympic gold medalist out of the Canadian Olympic Trials. A national catastrophe, right, meaning Bailey won't be in Sydney? Well no, he'll be recovered by then, and he'll be there. Canada isn't the U.S., after all. Here's a little background:

We Americans are similar in many respects to our northern neighbors, and we get along famously. The only time Canadians get really mad at us is when we're ignorant of a few trivial bits of information about their country, like who their prime minister is (hint: It's Jean Chretien). And the average American is way better armed than the average Canadian, so they hate it when we try to bring handguns across the border. Not that I've tried. Honest!

Still, things in Canada are different. Citizens have health care, for example--all of them. And they use that fancy-dancy metric system. And some of them speak French. So all things considered, Canada really is "a whole nother country."

I was reminded of this recently when I traveled (unarmed...really!) to British Columbia on vacation. I happened to be there while Bailey was in Sweden pulling his muscle, an event that garnered as much media attention in Canada as the entire U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials did in the U.S. (and remember, this has been a good year for track and field coverage here).

Canadians are very aware of the U.S. system, as evidenced by Beverley Smith's story, "Bailey Resumes Olympic Training," in the Friday, August 4th "Globe and Mail." Wrote Smith: "Although the Canadian championships will also serve as the Olympic qualifying meet, Bailey will probably get a medical bye to the Sydney event. The 'sudden-death' qualifying system in the United States carries much more dire consequences; if a top athlete has a bad day at the U.S. Olympic trials, he or she can forget a trip to the Olympics."

A medical bye seems downright brilliant, but it must be a can of worms, eh? Not in Canada. An "independent, six-member national team appeals committee" considers the athlete's performances, looks at the medical evidence, and decides whether the athlete is clearly deserving of a spot on the team.

"It's not a complex process," said John Thresher, president of Athletics Canada. "I think our system is more athlete sensitive and more athlete-friendly and works towards the benefit of the athletes, rather than a sudden-death approach."

I've learned over the years that athlete-friendly tends to be in the eye of the beholder. Still, Thresher's perspective certainly sounds right. Why should a top athlete be denied a spot on his nation's Olympic Team because of an untimely injury?

If we had this system, we could put, among others, Maurice Greene and Michael Johnson in the 200-meters, Bob Kennedy in the 5000, and Steve Holman in the 1500. That's assuming, of course, they were interested. None of these guys, though--no one in the U.S. who had injuries prior to or at the trials--has actually asked for medical consideration. It's a brutal system, but it's crystal clear. Ain't no exceptions.

And by the way, let's not forget that a medical bye ends up bumping the third-place trials qualifier off the team, which seems extremely athlete-unfriendly when you consider it might have happened to me back in 1976.

So, kudos to the Canadians for their rational, straight-forward medical bye. It's just that, well, we don't want it. The U.S. isn't Canada, after all, so don't try to coerce us into using it. And remember, we've got guns.