Turns out Izaic Yorks is off the Pan Am Games team due to an apparent oversight by USATF...

On our post on Monday announcing the selection of athletes for the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru, we noted that University of Washington alum Izaic Yorks (left/photo by Paul Merca) was put on the team by USA Track & Field.

As ESPN’s GameDay football analyst Lee Corso would say, “not so fast, my friend!”

Lee Corso College GIF from Leecorso GIFs

Turns out that a few hours after USA Track & Field issued the press release, LetsRun.com’s Jonathan Gault wrote that the federation used a different selection procedure than the one posted on its website.

According to the selection procedures posted on its website in December, “individual event athletes will be selected using the 2019 U.S. Performance Rank Order List (Comprehensive) non-wind aided results as of Monday June 10, 2019 (midnight Eastern Standard Time (EST)).” For the marathon and 50K race walk, it’s the same, except for an earlier cutoff date, April 21. Below that section, USATF even provides a link to follow to find the list, which takes you here. Click on the link for 2019 and you find a link to the 2019 U.S. Comprehensive List.

Only one problem—they didn’t use that to select the Pan Am team.

Here’s a link to Gault’s article on the letsrun.com site to fully explain (as best as he can) the situation.

Wednesday, USATF edited the original press release to update the makeup of the team.

The athletes who were originally on Monday's release were: Sam Ellison (m800); Yorks and Eric Avila (m1500); Tyler Day and Josef Tessema (m5000); Josh Awotunde (mSP); and Kelly McKee (wTJ).

Because of the oversight by USATF, they have been replaced by Bryce Hoppel (m800); Craig Engels and Johnny Gregorek  (m1500); former Brooks Beast Riley Masters and Shadrack Kipchirchir (m5000); Curtis Jensen (mSP); and Imani Oliver (wTJ).

Needless to say, there are some pretty upset athletes, coaches, and agents. Stay tuned…this might not be over yet.

UPDATE: Via Becca Gillespy Peter of polevaultpower.com and a Facebook group that she moderates, here is a redacted copy of an email sent to those athletes regarding an arbitration conference call that happened earlier this evening.

In a text sent to publisher Paul Merca, Brooks Beasts coach Danny Mackey said that both he and Yorks were unaware of the arbitration conference call when sent a copy of the USATF email.

NOTE: LetsRun and FloTrack contributed to this report.