OLYMPIC OVERVIEW WHY?

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You can not simply avoid intellegence, you have to destroy it or it will destroy you!

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Gerry, I lover you man, but I think that "intelligence" may have claimed you first.

This stuff is gold. Gold I tell you!

"Life is tough. It's even toughter when you're stupid." John Wayne

When I was running well people often asked me what my secret was. I told them it was total stupidity and it was a big joke. But I was never joking.

Every time I did a mid-race sprint I KNEW it was gonna hurt. I Knew it wouldn't work because everyone knew I was going to throw it anyway. I knew it was a stupid thing to do but I did it anyway. And it always worked! I have no idea why. I certainly would never go into a race knowing there was going to be a mid-race sprint and NOT be ready to respond, but every time there was no response. How could that be?

When I went out too fast the first mile, I KNEW it was way too fast. I knew I was dead meat. Stupidity is your best friend when you race. Stupidity will protect you and get you to the finish line ahead of intellegence every time!

No, pal, stupidity is YOUR best friend. You obviously spend a lot of intimate time together.

He Gerry I like the way you think but I think a better word for it might be "intuition".

I. Ben Thar II wrote:

"Life is tough. It's even tougher when you're stupid." John Wayne

Or, as the rowers say: "No brain, no pain."

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That said, Gerry's defeat of the Soviet runners in the 1964 dual meet (doesn't that boggle our minds nowadays? a major international dual meet in an Olympic year?) was absolutely inspiring. It brought to mind Zatopek's comment: "Every time I felt tired, I picked up the pace."

There were times when I did just that in my own (brief) running career, and advised it in my (lengthy) coaching career. Sometimes it didn't work; sometimes it worked surprisingly (even amazingly) well.

If you and the other guy are both dragging (and if *you* are, *he* probably is, right?) and you throw in a sprint, a lot of times he'll fold. Or, if he hangs on to one sprint, and you throw in a second one a little later, he may just figure you're going to keep it up the rest of the way and say goodbye.

Gerry, please keep 'em coming. I'm always saying that nothing works for everyone, but your advice definitely will work for some (even if only a few)--and they're not likely to hear it from any other source nowadays.

I can't believe Doug Logan and USATF let the athletes stay in the local village to get poisoned by the Chinese. Flanagan, Richards, etc. almost died from spoiled food and sewer water. Other countries flew in tons of bottled water and food. Some attended the opening ceremonies, and then flew everyone out of China, and flew them back in one at a time but only on their day of competition to avoid the filthy conditions. How many medals did the USA lose because of Logan's bungling ?

By the time Logan was hired as USATF CEO, it was far too late to change where the athletes were living. Those commitments had to be made perhaps as long as a year ago. Before you accuse someone of mismanagement, get your facts straight. This might be a USATF mistake, but it certainly isn't a Logan mistake.

I think the USA had nearly 500 athletes. I know only of two that got sick. If there were quite a few more, provide some names. If this were a problem with other countries, I think the newspapers or letsrun message board would have picked up on it. You can get food poisioning anywhere and you haven't made a convincing case it was a serious issue where the athletes were staying. China spent about $40 Billion on this Olympics. Something tells me they took care to insure the food served to the athletes within the athlete village would not make them sick. If something did happen I suspect it was an isolated case. I'm open to being convinced I'm wrong here.

But without some hard facts, your are just another letsrun complainer.

Hundreds became ill and weak. The many bad performances can be blamed on weakness due to food poisoning and diarhea. Other countries avoided the issue altogther and kept all of their athletes on Hong Kong, Seoul, or Tokyo until the day of their competition. USOC and USATF bungled Beijing badly. Sluffing off what happened to Flanagan and Richards proves that you are an insider and a suck-up.

NBC paid $2.2B and USOC can't house the U.S. Olympic Team in Seoul, Taipei, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Osaka, Fukuoka where the water is clean and the sanitary conditions are civilized ? Give me a break.

You can mock Gerry all you want, it doesn't matter. Your opinion is worth nothing. If more people followed Gerry's advice/example we would have stronger, faster American distance runners.

Another smart man said the following...

“Logic will get you from A to B.

Imagination will take you everywhere.”

-Albert Einstein

Dare to be different or accept the fact that you are like everyone else.