Worst Choking Moments in Running

Suzy Favor

I was running one time and a bug flew in my mouth and hit me right in the back of the throat. I must have choked for a good five minutes.

Alberto Salazar in the Olympic marathon.

Or another big choke would be Jordan Hasay at the 2006 and 2007 Footlocker Finals.

Steph Lowe's entire career at Texas Tech

txCHOKERgirl wrote:

Steph Lowe's entire career at Texas Tech

Since you have to run below expectations to choke, I don't understand how a person's entire career could be defined as choking. If you are saying that she always ran poorly, then she wasn't running below expectations when she ran poorly because she would have been expected to do so.

My first thought: what career?

If you are talking about my running career there, I never really had much of one, so I don't see how that is choking. More like a slow painful death. Thanks.

Geez, I thought you were going to make a huge comeback from injury and make all-American!

I don't like these sorts of threads, too much focus on negativity. We all know what we don't want to do already. Anyway, from as much as any of us could know of her through this message board, Ms. Lowe has always seemed to have an extraordinary level of heart and determination.

There are probably too many to list from notable women, but they have to be in big races to be called the "worst" so I won't give any of those.

FWIW, I don't think Salazar choked at the Olympics. I was a huge fan back then and while we didn't have the internet, magazines actually did a good job with interviews and I read everything you could back then. Something to keep in mind: this was the best field probably ever assembled for any Olympics, the beginning of open professionalism probably contributed to this, but consider who was in the field:

1 Carlos Lopes (POR) 2'09:21

2 John Treacy (IRL) 2'09:56

3 Charlie Spedding (GBR) 2'09:58

4 Takeshi So (JPN) 2'10:55

5 Robert de Castella (AUS) 2'11:09

6 Juma Ikangaa (TAN) 2'11:10

7 Joseph Nzau (KEN) 2'11:28

8 Djama Robleh (DJI) 2'11:39

9 Jerry Kiernan (IRL) 2'12:20

10 Rod Dixon (NZL) 2'12:57

11 Pete Pfitzinger (USA) 2'13:53

12 Hugh Jones (GBR) 2'13:57

13 Jorge González (PUR) 2'14:00

14 Toshihiko Seko (JPN) 2'14:13

15 Alberto Salazar (USA) 2'14:19

16 Mehmet Terzi (TUR) 2'14:20

17 Shigeru So (JPN) 2'14:38

18 Ralf Salzmann (FRG) 2'15:29

19 Henrik Jørgensen (DEN) 2'15:55

20 Ahmed Salah (DJI) 2'15:59

21 Agapius Masong (TAN) 2'16:25

22 Gidamis Shahanga (TAN) 2'16:27

23 Eloi Schleder (BRA) 2'16:35

24 Karel Lismont (BEL) 2'17:07

25 Allan Zachariassen (DEN) 2'17:10

Lopes was clearly the best 10k runner in the world over the previous 10 years based on time. Only Rono or Mamede really came close in terms of times. 3X WCCC winner. First man under 2:08. In hindsight, Lopes was clearly the best in that field. Only Deek, Salazar or Seko at their best could have beaten him. Dixon was too big.

Deek was the World and Commonwealth Champ and the WR holder at 2:08:18, but no matter what else he had going for him he could not cruise 25 laps at 27:20 like Lopes could.

Treacy was 2X WCCC champ and a 27:49 guy and had been in 2 Olympics in the 10k.

The Soh brothers (4th and 17th) were solid 2:09-2:10 guys every year, twice a year.

Ikangaa was hugely talented and eventually ran 2:08.

The Djiboutians (8th and 20th and another guy in about 30th) were huge talents and I can't remember where they had their breakthrough before the Games.

Dixon had been a world-class runner for 12 years or so by then and was right near the best in the world at 1500 or 5000m for all of the 70's. He also dominated road racing in the U.S. in 1980 (because of the Moscow boycott) and had that 2:08:59 win at NYC.

Seko was an assassin, who had won Boston once and Fukuoka FOUR TIMES by 1984. he also had run 27:46 for 10k and had run 1:49 for the 800m when he was just 19 or so.

Deek was the favorite (since he had seemingly won marathons in every way that you could -- and he had won the Rotterdam showdown with Lopes, Salazar and some others), but the theory was that he coudl not run away from Dixon or Seko and one of them would outkick him.

Salazar, on the other hand, had dominated everything he did for a while: indoor 5ks, road 10ks, marathons (undefeated), American records at 5k/10k, winning the WCCC trials and placing high at the WCCC ... until Rotterdam 1983.

He was beaten back to fifth I think, and really this is where he started to decline. He was last at the '83 WC 10k and then took 5th at Fukuoka, so he had been beaten by DeCastella, Lopes and Seko by this point. he also struggled with his health during this time saying that although he won the '83 Nat Champs at 10k it was very hard to do so. He ran around fifth I think at the Mt SAC race that had Porter, Cummings, Salazar and a few others right around 27:45. Then, of course, he lost the Marathon OT to Pfitz in his slowest time ever.

Some people say that he just wasn't as good as we made him out to be over 1980-1983, but I think he was just not as good as those years and it took a while to show this.

The '84 Olympic marathon was dominated by great XC runners and 10k'ers and Salazar was both of those. At his best I think he would have run with Lopes to the end and lost, but I just don't think that he was at his best by then. However, I don't think he choked.

Jesus, looking at that list made me realize that the field contained the current WR holders (Salazar or DeCastella -- depending on how you look at it) and the future WR holder: Lopes. It also had the current Commonwealth Champion, and the World Champion.

It had winners of the Boston marathon ('81 - Seko, '82 - Salazar), NYC marathon (3X - Salazar, '83 - Dixon), Rotterdam winner, three-time winner at Fukuoka (Seko - which I would say was about as prestigious as Chicago is now, but not quite the "big show" that London is. It was considered the de facto World Championship since the '60s.

There are a lot more great marathon runners now, and a lot more sub-2:10 runners than there was 25 years ago, but have any global championships had a field this strong? Hell, Beijing did not have any WR holders did it?

The WC was only held once every four years back then so it was harder to have the current or future WC in the field back then.

Last, it took 24 years for someone to break Lopes's OR in the marathon of 2:09:21. I am betting that his record was set in comparable pollution and heat to Wanjiru's new OR.

Fernando Mamede - 10k WR and DFL in '82 ECs, '83 WCs and '84 OGs. Could NOT compete.

Vera Nikolic 68 Olympics

http://www.sporting-heroes.net/athletics-heroes/displayhero.asp?HeroID=6011

overexplainer wrote:

The '84 Olympic marathon was dominated by great XC runners and 10k'ers and Salazar was both of those. At his best I think he would have run with Lopes to the end and lost, but I just don't think that he was at his best by then. However, I don't think he choked.

Salazar had already started to fade a bit by the time of the '84 Olympic marathon.

These types of threads are usually dominated by posters who really have no clue what they are talking about. The Salazar suggestion is one that fits that profile.

If "choking" is to be interpreted as an inability to perform in a given competition because of a lack of control over ones nerves then I'd say Mamede and Suzy Favor qualify.

Interestingly....a runner considered one of the great competitors of all time....Herb Elliot....said that one of the reasons he stopped competing was because he could not stand the case of nerves he had prior to competition.

I don't think I'd list Salazar on this choke list, but my recollection was that he was never in the race. I would have preferred he pulled a Paula Radcliffe, who hung in gamely as long as she could.

And, I was a fan of his up to that point, but the way he completely cut up his USA jersey upset me at the time.

Alan Webb at the 2008 Olympic trials. Obviously, he wasn't in shape, but there is still no explanation for why he went from quite possibly the best mid-d guy in the world to failing to qualify for his national team in less than a year.

TRUTH!!!!! wrote:

Alberto Salazar in the Olympic marathon.

Or another big choke would be Jordan Hasay at the 2006 and 2007 Footlocker Finals.

Hasay was training for World XC one year, or maintaining that as her focus.

I think she might have had an injury one year too, or an injury over the summer, which disrupted training.

If you're going to pick on HS runners how about FLMW Jager's senior year?

Fernando Mamede, 10k world record holder, running off the track in the middle of the 1984 Olympic 10k final.

Ryan Hall at the 2008 Olympics

No one has really come out and said it.

Ryan bottled it.

Everyone would have much rather seen him have a go at a medal and die than do what he did. There were so many guys with slower pb's infront of him and never ever had a go. Absolute wimp.

Just like Webb...good time trialer but nowhere when it matters.

Don't,

Don't post again. How did he choke??? A top ten finish at the Olympics in the marathon, I agree with his race stragety due to the heat, humidity and past times in the Olympics. Also look at Hall, White, Blond Hair. When was the last time a White, light colored hair person won the Olympic marathon. I remember reading in the 80's that people of upper European decent do not have the genetics to excel in the heat and humidity and far much better in colder weather.