do you ever wish...

especially now as the olympics and, more particularly, worlds loom in the not so distant future, do you ever wish there was just a standard international criteria to qualify athletes for competition instead of berths per country (with a max of 3)? if a country has 6 skaters that are contenders for the world championship, why shouldn't they all be able to compete? isn't the purpose to determine the best? (this argument kind of surfaced with the age issue in respect to mao asada being too young). i can understand with the "nationality" aspect of the olympics, but i wish worlds was different. it's sad reading articles about the female japanese skaters that are more than qualified to compete being sidelined just because the field is so deep when less qualified skaters from other countries get to compete. what do you all think?

I agree for Worlds. For the Olympics, I don't think it is possible to take the role of nationalism out, because that's what the whole Olympic idea is about -- nations competing against each other.

For Worlds I don't see why you couldn't at least have a seeding procedure where extra athletes would qualify (by winning various international competitions, etc.), and still allow each member nation to send its champion.

MM

I agree, Mathman. It might take the competition a little longer, but it would be cool to find out the outcome.