This has been a great WC for US distance runners.

You have got to be joking!

Medioctrity!

You are applauding mediocrity!

applauding improvement...

this was by far our best championship showing in a long time, the team worked hard to get the US a little closer to being competitive with the african nations

not there yet but getting closer

Yea! Lets give it up to the US marathoners and steeplechasers!!! Did even half of them finish their races???? Maybe we should test their genders..... they ran without balls.

Improvement? Riddle me this: compared to Osaka, did the US get more, fewer, or the same amount of medals from 800m up?

You call it improvement - I'll stick with mediocrity

um... ever heard of Beijing????

2 men in the top 10 in the 5k...outscoring Kenya.

2 men in the top 10 in the 10k...for the "Naturalists" out there that's two corn fed white Americans.

I think many of you are too young to remember when all we had was BK in the 5k and TW in the 10k and Croghan in the steeple who had any chance of a top 10.

Then of course we had Meb and Abdi scoring well, but the haters all say "well they ain't really 'mericans!" The addition of Lagat didn't help that.

Now we finally have guys like Ritz, Rupp, and Teg performing well, placing in the top 10 and (including Lagat) outscoring Kenya in the 5k.

....and still there are boos of mediocrity.

I can remember when they had a round of heats in the 10k and we had no one in the 10k final. I remember when we only had BK in the final of the 5k for YEARS. I can remember having only TW qualify to even enter the 10k (ie: not enough B qualifiers).

Alan

Who is TW?

BK = Bob Kennedy, right?

Todd Williams, kiddo.

nyer1 wrote:

You have got to be joking!

Medioctrity!

You are applauding mediocrity!

Main Entry: me·di·o·cre

Date: circa 1586

of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance

What definition of mediocre are you using? The facts are the US performed very well. Making a final does not equal low quality or ability. Just because a medal was not won does not mean it is a moderate performance. An an above average performance would be comparing what the average place was for the event and seeing where athletes placed. A majority of our distance runners were significantly better than par.

Agree--the Americans did very well for the most part. Obviously we are not up the the East African standards--but we seem to be the next best nation when you look at all the mid distance and distance events for both genders.

Ah ok, so it is good to just be an also ran. hmmmmmm i thought the whole purpose was to try one's best to win

Dicktionary wrote:

nyer1 wrote:

You have got to be joking!

Medioctrity!

You are applauding mediocrity!

Main Entry: me·di·o·cre

Date: circa 1586

of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance

What definition of mediocre are you using? The facts are the US performed very well. Making a final does not equal low quality or ability. Just because a medal was not won does not mean it is a moderate performance. An an above average performance would be comparing what the average place was for the event and seeing where athletes placed. A majority of our distance runners were significantly better than par.

I thought the US did okay, not great, but pretty decent. I think some people had a bit too high expectations and thus it seems like the Americans' performance was mediocre. Having a half-dozen medallists seemed pretty unlikely, but I thought it was cool to see a lot of US athletes mixing it up in the finals. We still have a way to go, but I think it was a generally positive meet. The men's steeplers on the other hand, have quite a bit of work to do.

nyer1 wrote:

Ah ok, so it is good to just be an also ran. hmmmmmm i thought the whole purpose was to try one's best to win

And how did you do at the WC's?

Some of you wont be happy unless the US wins gold in all the distance events. No nation does that. We performed very well!

It's been a very good year....

The Americans did well for the most part, with the exception of the Steeplecase. Did any English distance runner even make the finals.

I wonder how Webb feels seeing an entire new generation of US 1500 meter runners putting him into yesterdays news.

It's been a good two decades since comparing our runners to English runners meant anything.

Overall the US is in 'improving' mode right now at distance.

Americans do not (mostly) live at altitude, run 10 miles to school and live on bugs - oh, and less-than-ideal body types(try carving out a great nation as the US has with the body type and temperament of an East African). However, our population, and the fact that hobby-jogging at least keeps the sport somewhat high profile to the public, suggests to me that we should have at least a couple of dozen Rupp/Ritz/Hall types

ie. greater depth, if not quite up there with Bekele et al.

If this depth is maintained over time, sooner or later even slobby western countries will produce world beaters. Look at the UK in the Coe/Ovett/Cram years.