Michigan Track and Field granted exception for extra competition
This will allow them to be considered for NCAA championship qualifications
January 29th, 2021 at 9:33 AM ^
Missed the first part
January 29th, 2021 at 10:44 AM ^
Shutdown should have less impact on the cross-country teams since they'd still be able to train solo.
January 29th, 2021 at 10:04 AM ^
Following the science? Yeah, right. Not so much. So much inconsistency from state officials on down.
January 29th, 2021 at 10:27 AM ^
Reading the tweets carefully, it doesn't actually change anything about the shutdown. They're still NOT going to compete within the two week window (within which the Big Ten championships fall). This is not a UM or state decision, it's a Big Ten conference decision to allow the team to compete in one NON-conference meet AFTER the shutdown, so that they can qualify for NCAAs.
That's my takeaway, anyway, from some admittedly poorly worded tweets.
January 29th, 2021 at 10:29 AM ^
You want to see inconsistency take a look at the viewing public they have to attempt to govern. Seems to me as though we have gotten what we deserve here.
January 29th, 2021 at 10:20 AM ^
You ask for a Doge, you get a Doge
January 29th, 2021 at 10:14 AM ^
This whole situation is a mess, so I'm glad the XC team gets a break here. The hope, I'm sure, is that by the time we'd get to a championship meet in the Spring the pandemic will have subsided more.
January 29th, 2021 at 10:48 AM ^
Any updates on whether the b-117 variant has spread to any of our teams? Has our test rates gone up through the athletic department?
January 29th, 2021 at 11:37 AM ^
Good questions but no answers; mums the word. Hopefully, we'll get some info on that soon.
January 29th, 2021 at 3:30 PM ^
I guess here’s an answer to my question.
Michigan athletic department: 11 positive COVID tests this week
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverin…
I apologize as I am not savvy enough to embed link. Please forgive this near 50 year old man.
January 29th, 2021 at 11:35 AM ^
I will leave it up to others to debate the merits of the MDHHS decision - kinda done with it myself - but looking at things from the athletic/athlete perspective this is GOOD news, but not necessarily GREAT news. While this gives them a path to become eligible, this year's NCAA XC Championship will not have regional qualifiers and instead be based on a selection committee picking teams to compete. So the selection committee will being judging U of M teams based on a meet against some yet to be determined team(s). While time is a purely objective measure in most cases, it ain't when it comes to cross country. Meets are run on different courses, with varying difficulty and weather conditions, and varying levels of competitors. It can very difficult to make a comparison. Hopefully the selection committee will give U of M a bit of break in this, but I never want to count on having the NCAA make the right call.
January 29th, 2021 at 1:19 PM ^
Yeah, the course will likely have some effect, but UM looks to be one of the better teams in the country this year and my guess is that they'll be given the benefit of the doubt. But even if they had run the conference championships instead, you're still basing it off a single meet in February. It probably wasn't going to be pretty either way.
January 29th, 2021 at 11:55 AM ^
I wonder if they're going to try to schedule a random dual/tri meet or see if they can jump into an invitational, if there are any of those going on. An invitational would be ideal since there would be more teams competing. Otherwise, you'd hope they could get a dual/tri meet against a solid team(s).