The World Selection Committee consists of several people who each have their own role to play. They are usually chosen for a specific reason and they are all very experienced in what they need to accomplish. In short, the World Selection Committee is a group of people who make the entire process of the Olympic Games happen. Each member of the committee has something to contribute and they all know what they are looking for and how to go about making it happen.
The World Selection Committee is made up of five people who meet once a month in the week before the Olympic Games are due to start. The members of the committee can be elected by the organizing committee but the actual members serve on a rotating basis as well. The person who is currently on the World Selection Committee is Dr. David Phillips, a British doctor, and he is a four-time world champion synchronized swimming. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Phillips had served as an assistant to the president of the United States Olympic Committee. He knows very well about the selection processes and how the games should be organized.
The members of the world selection committee are chosen for several different reasons. The most common reason is because of their athletic ability, which should be obvious. Many members of the committee are excellent swimmers and runners and they are also capable of judging a distance event such as the Olympic distance swimming. This is necessary because there are no guidelines as to how an athlete has to swim in certain events. This leaves the athletes to be the ones to decide how they want to swim in certain events.
For instance, if an athlete has trouble with the high bar or getting down in a dive, they might choose to swim on the high bar instead of to dive or to lay off the dive. In this manner, it would appear that the athlete is choosing to swim a particular distance event because of their own abilities instead of because of what the competition is doing. As a matter of fact, the world selection committee wants to leave it up to the athlete to show how they can best represent their country. Therefore, it is a good idea to let them do that rather than let someone else do it.
Another factor that the committee looks at is if the athlete is ready to take part in the Olympic Games. If they find that an athlete is not ready, they will make it known and the athlete may not be allowed to participate in the Olympics. For example, if the American sprinter was a member of the world selection committee but had not competed in a high jump competition since high school, they might be unable to compete for the United States in the Olympics.
Therefore, the world selection committee wants to ensure that they are making the right calls about which athletes should go to which games. One thing that the committee Chair, Bobrovitch, did not say was that all qualified athletes have an opportunity to compete for the gold medal in gymnastics at the world championships, the samdrup, or at any other such events. I asked him if he thought that it was a mistake for US athletes to leave the Olympics early because they were not being fair to the Samburu.