It was an April morning when they told us we should go

I hate to bring up the whole Athletics Canada standards issue again but this result stuck out…  Dana Ellis just pole vaulted 4.52 in a meet in Chula Vista, CA last weekend and is not on the team competing in Osaka next week.   That mark is the pending Canadian record and currently ranks her 21st in the world.  Her latest mark fell too late, by any rules, to qualify her for Worlds.  However, she already cleared the IAAF “A” standard, of 4.45, when she vaulted 4.46 in April.  By the way, Canada’s “Eh” standard is 4.54.  Its not like Dana has had a bad track record either, in the past three years at major championships she has finished 6th at the Olympics, 6th at Worlds and 4th at last year’s Commonwealth Games.  In Canada we are in need of track athletes who can perform well at these competitions for federal funding.  Dana is obviously peaking at the right time in regards to the timing of the World Champs and, at the wrong time to hit the Canadian Standards.  Its too bad the system doesn’t allow the peak to happen at the same time.  Its not like Canada is taking any other pole vaulters either.  Kelsie Hendry also had three IAAF B standards this year and is not going. 

I just finished reading Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins and although I find him very entertaining there is usually very little in the way of inspiration in his novels.  Here is a quote from the book that I found both entertaining and inspiring:

The fact that so much skill and effort and courage can be directed into something so ostensibly useless is what makes it useful.  That’s what affords it the power to lift us out of context and carry us – elsewhere.