Just looking at results, it appears to me the US could possibly win. Just goes to show how dominant we are.
Just looking at results, it appears to me the US could possibly win. Just goes to show how dominant we are.
Good question actually. I've always thought this would make quite a good Ryder Cup style event, maybe every four years just after the European champs. It would be a good contest, particularly the men's events, but the East European women would prove too strong I would suggest. Let's consider:
Men
Sprints
Embarrassing whitewash for the US
Middle distance/Distance
Euro probably have the edge but it's close
Throws
East euro strength at discus and hammer, together with Scandi tradition at javalin, overcomes US at the shot.
Jumps
Slight euro edge as they dominate HJ, while PV, LJ and are triple pretty even.
Women
Sprints
Almost as lob-sided as the men, though Kim Gevaert and various Russians can get amoung the yanks.
Middle distance/Distance
Radcliffe and a million random Russians give euro a strong lead.
Jumps
The Russian powerhouse gives euros a heavy advantage.
Throws
Those beautiful Belarusian shot putters and their friends make this a euro forte.
sounds a lot like the world cup, except europe is split into three teams. even without germany and great britain (the teams usually selected to compete on their own), we lose. it will probably happen again this year. you can see the past results here:
We have extraordinary depth, that is what you need to win, so we would win.
We might, but only if the USATF gathered a 23 person coaching staff.
There are really no European male distance runners able to take on Lagat, Webb, Teg, Robinson, and Lincoln.
UK distance running has never been in worse shape.
Europe isnt just the UK. And Yuriy would smoke Khadevis, easily. And Heshko has a big chance of beating Webb and Lagat. So in distance events we would probably lose.
Go easy on the kid, I am proud that he knew about one country outside the USA. You can't expect him to believe an entire CONTINENT exists as well. I think Som, Silva, Baala, Yuriy, Heshko, Wilson Kipketer (has he retired?), and a half dozen other guys may have something to say about US "dominance" in the middle distances.
I think that is way too big to include all of Europe against the U.S.. I think it should be continent versus continent. Then we might have a good shot. But come on, Russia alone is about as big as the U.S..
"Sprints: Embarrassing whitewash for the US" hmmm...interesting choice of words. I agree our brothers would crush Europe in the 100 and 200 but there wouldn't be too much "white" about it.
what about the 400, bitch?
Geographically they've got us beat easy, but Russia has less than half the population of the U.S.
Granted, part of Russia could be considered Euro, but would most people consider it an Asian country?
One of the differences between a traditional dual meet and the World Cup is that in the former you get multiple athletes per event and in the latter only one. So at the World Cup our strength in the sprints, hurdles and selected field events are muted but our weakness in the other events isn't.
I posted a theoretical meet on my blog, using the current IAAF World Rankings to determine places and scored it 5-3-1, using all the traditional events except the 10k, marathon, walks and multis.
The results? Yeah, the US men would more than likely win. The women haven't got a chance in hell.
Interestingly enough, the top two in the men's 5k project to be Adam Goucher and Dathan Ritzenhein. The IAAF world rankings don't always represent reality well, but I thought it worth mentioning.
Just out of curiousity, how many coaches are we sending?