Curtis Thompson will be throwing in his first World Championships after all.
Thompson, the Olympian from Florence, placed 2nd in the U.S. Championships last weekend in Eugene with a throw of 264-1.
But because he and none of the other competitors had reached the World Championships qualifying standard of 278-10 ¼ – which only four Americans have ever thrown – it was believed that only the winner, Virginia’s Ethan Dobbs, would represent the U.S. at the World Championships later this month.
It turns out there is another way to qualify for the U.S. team and it’s a way that nobody watching the U.S. Championships, nobody attending the U.S. Championships and nobody following the U.S. Championships could have possibly known about.
On page 5 of a document called “2022 World Athletics Selection Procedures,” which is a download on Flipsnack with a link buried on the USATF web site, it states:
“If, after the close of the Selection Event, there is a place or are places in an event(s) on the World Championships Team that have not been filled, USATF will enter an athlete(s) or designate an athlete as an alternate, based upon their rank order of place finish at the Selection Event, and by virtue of their standing on the World Rankings list to be published by World Athletics on June 29, 2022. These athletes are not required to achieve the corresponding entry standard.”
If you hunt around the World Athletics web site for a while you can find the world rankings lists, and it shows Thompson at No. 22 in the world based on a sliding point scale with 1,166 points.
If you click on his name in that list, you see five of his results from this year with a point value assigned to each performance ranging from 1,138 points for his 266-5 at the Harry Jerome Classic in Vancouver last month to 1,119 points for his 81.22 at the USATF Throws Fest in Tucson in May.
Why isn’t his 268-1 from Oregon Relays listed? Who knows? Maybe this is his most recent five meets? And what is the difference between an “R Sc” and a Pt.Sc?” No idea.And good luck trying to figure it all out.
How do they get 1,166 points? It appears it’s the average of the “PtSc” point totals from the five meets that are listed.
What other sport holds a national-caliber competition and keeps it a secret how it works? It’s like going to the Super Bowl and they refuse to tell you the score. USATF seems to have zero desire to keep fans interested in the sport it’s supposed to be promoting.
This is typical USATF. They hold a national championship meet to qualify athletes for the World Championships and don’t let anybody know how the advancement procedure works. The only reason I even know he’s on the team is because I follow him on social media. Great job as always, USATF!
But it’s great news for Thompson since the javelin standard is so out of whack with what people are throwing these days. Only 10 throwers in the world have hit the standard this year, all from Europe.
The 2022 World Championships are scheduled for July 15-24 at Hayward Field in Eugene, where Thompson has recorded the three-best throws of his life.
The men’s javelin is scheduled in two sections for 8:05 p.m. and 9:35 p.m. EST on Thursday, July 21 – we don’t know yet which section Thompson will compete in. The final is scheduled for 9:35 p.m. on Saturday, July 23.
Thompson has placed in the top-3 at U.S. nationals four times now and has never placed worse than 6th: He was 2nd at the 2016 Olympic Trials, 6th in the 2017 nationals in Sacramento, won nationals in 2018 in Des Moines, took 4th in 2019 in Des Moines, there was no meet in 2020 and he won last year’s Olympic Trials in Eugene.
Thompson will join Pleasantville’s Nia Ali, Cherokee’s Jessica Woodard and Delsea’s Josh Awotunde in the South Jersey contingent at Worlds. Ali will race the high hurdles and Woodard and Awotunde are throwing the shot.
Here’s what their schedules look like:
Friday, July 15
8:05 p.m. – Women’s shot put qualifying
9:55 p.m. – Men’s shot put qualifying
Saturday, July 16
9:25 p.m. – Women’s shot put final
Sunday, July 17
9:27 p.m. – Men’s shot put final
Thursday, July 21
8:05 p.m. – Men’s javelin qualifying
Saturday, July 23
2:20 p.m. – Women’s 100-meter hurdles qualifying
9:35 p.m. – Men’s javelin final
Sunday, July 24
8:05 p.m. – Women’s 100-meter hurdles semifinals
10 p.m. – Women’s 100-meter hurdles final
Here’s a look at all of Thompson’s lifetime throws of 260 feet or better:
271-11… Olympic Trials, Hayward Field, Eugene, July 4, 2016
271-7 … Olympic Trials, Hayward Field, Eugene, June 21, 2021
268-1 … Oregon Relays, Hayward Field, Eugene, April 23, 2022
267-2 … USATF Throws Festival, Roy P. Drachman Stadium, Tucson, Ariz., May 22, 2021
266-5 … USATF Throws Festival, Roy P. Drachman Stadium, Tucson, Ariz., May 21, 2022
265-10 … American JavFest, East Stroudsburg [Pa.] South High School, July 17, 2021
265-10 … Florida State Relays, Mike Long Track, Tallahassee, Fla., March 25, 2016
265-7 … Victoria Track Classic, Centennial Stadiumn, Victoria, British Columbia, June 15, 2022
264-8 … USATF Throws Festival, Roy P. Drachman Stadium, Tucson, Ariz., May 21, 2022
264-1 … USATF Championships, Hayward Field, Eugene, Ore., June 26, 2022
263-10 … 94th annual Clyde Littlefield Texas Relays, Mike A. Myers Stadium, Austin, Texas, March 25, 2022
260-11 … American JavFest, East Stroudsburg [Pa.] South High School, July 30, 2016
260-1 … NACAC Under-23, San Salvador, Estadio Jorge “Mágico” González, June 17, 2016
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 
I’m not even sure that the US gets to decide who goes to the World Championships. From reading through the Javelin regulations for World Champs, they give wildcards to winners of important events(defending champion, Diamond League, continental championships) , then take anyone who meets the automatic qualification standard of 85m, then if they haven’t made their target of 32 qualifiers from that they go down the ranking list and pick up the highest ranked guys who haven’t hit 85m in the last year.
So, the US qualifies Shuey, who hit the automatic qualification mark when he threw 85.67m last year, then Thompson who is ranked 22nd, and Glover who is ranked 29th. Dabbs misses out even though he is the American champion and ranked 31st which should have gotten him the second-to-last spot, because he is the 4th American and you can only take 3.
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Actually, Dabbs and Glover are on the team along with Thompson and I have no idea why. I appreciate you trying to figure this out but none of it makes sense. And whatever format they use isn’t explained clearly anywhere on the USATF or World Athletics site. Thanks!
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I’ve taken another look at the regulations and looked at how the US formed the rest of the teams where we have more athletes qualified than spots, and I think i might have figured it out.
The four who are qualified for javelin are Shuey, Thompson, Dabbs, and Glover. The US gets to send whoever we want, but we can only pick three. That’s what the championship meet is for, and the results were 1. Dabbs 2. Thompson 5. Glover 7. Shuey. So Dabbs, Thompson, and Glover qualify.
So if I’ve gotten it right(and it does seem to line up with what I’ve read and the other events), the championship meet is only relevant for our athletes who have qualified by the World Athletics rules. Then, if we have more athletes qualified than the maximum(I think 3 for all events), we re-rank only the qualified athletes by their result in the championship and take the first three. The other athletes performacnes don’t matter, and if there isn’t an overflow in qualified athletes(say we only had 2 qualified javelin throwers), then the results don’t matter either.
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