Was reading an old Fellrunner mag yesterday, and the contentious issue of international selection came up. The main back-and-forth of the argument appeared to be the selection of runners who may not necessarily dedicate themselves to the English/British champs, perhaps not being regulars at the big races. An argument that i'm sure has been aired more than once.

Last year (and hopefully again in 2021) i found myself fortunate enough to be trying to organise a county team for the inter-counties fell, and was faced with a similar dilemma...

I could just about pull together a full team of those who race at least semi-regularly on the fells. However i could undoubtedly select a stronger team from those who have maybe only done one or two fell/mountain races in their lives, yet are extremely good runners at other disciplines... the scale of the difference being in my "pure" fellrunning team i'd possibly be 2nd counter... yet in my fastest team possible i'd be hard pushed to actually make the team if everyone was available.

So the simple question is... do you pick a team that is fully representative of the fellrunning ability in your county/country, or do you go for the fastest team available on the day?

I suspect there is no single or simple answer to this, but interested to see the views of those on here who i know have been involved in team selections...