Name the last US Olympic male distance finalist from the U of Oregon.

rupp, 10k. idiot.

gfsdg wrote:

rupp, 10k. idiot.

Try again, genius.

Geis in 1976. Rupp in 2008.

Rock Opera wrote:

I'm excluding the marathon, since there are no semifinals.

There aren't any semi's in the 10,000 anymore. I imagine the Olympic finals in the 70s would have been a bit faster without semifinals to run.

I'm guessing the guy who keeps boasting about Los Angeles being the track & field capital of the world is the one who's asking about the last US Olympic finalist in a distance race from the University of Nike at Eugene...

I don't think anyone will come up with the financing to bankroll the track & field stadium he keeps proposing to be built on the site of the present LA Sports Arena so LA can host the world championships, and lure USATF to move its headquarters out of Indianapolis.

But, Rupp was indeed the last American distance runner to make a final in the Olympics out of the University of Oregon, if this indeed is a serious question.

gfsdg wrote:

rupp, 10k. idiot.

Rock Opera wrote:

Try again, genius.

If that isn't right, would you care to tell us what the answer is? I'm having a hard time thinking of any UO guys who made an Olympic final at some point in time between the last Olympics and today.

friedrichstrasse wrote:

I'm guessing the guy who keeps boasting about Los Angeles being the track & field capital of the world is the one who's asking about the last US Olympic finalist in a distance race from the University of Nike at Eugene...

I don't think anyone will come up with the financing to bankroll the track & field stadium he keeps proposing to be built on the site of the present LA Sports Arena so LA can host the world championships, and lure USATF to move its headquarters out of Indianapolis.

But, Rupp was indeed the last American distance runner to make a final in the Olympics out of the University of Oregon, if this indeed is a serious question.

likely you are right. and what this dude misses is most everyone doesn't care about his opinions.

This is an interesting question because what does he consider as a distance race--anything from 1500 up? Anyway, the last one from Oregon was Galen Rupp. Prior to that, there have been so many Wade Bell, Joaquim Cruz, Dellinger and Prefontaine (Salazar?) come to mind off the top, but I am sure there were many more.

This was a trick question, and Malmo indirectly answered it. As stated in the original post, I'm excluding the marathon "final" for the reason that there are no semifinals. Having established that standard for one distance event, it would be illogical not to apply it to the others (let's say from the 800m through the marathon), so that rules out the 10,000m in Beijing.

Joaquim Cruz wouldn't qualify under this thread, because he's not a "US Olympic male," although he did run for Oregon.

So, it seems that the OP is purposely eliminating almost all events, and many athletes who happen to be foreign born, This leaves us with a pretty small pool. The 800 and 1500 would be mid-distance races, the 10K is eliminated because it only has a final, so the only events left are the Steeplechase and the 5K. Since OP eliminates Rupp, Wade Bell, Cruz, et al....I'd say the answer is Bill Dellinger in the 5K.

Paul Geis

Razerback Fan wrote:

The 800 and 1500 would be mid-distance races, the 10K is eliminated because it only has a final, so the only events left are the Steeplechase and the 5K. Since OP eliminates Rupp, Wade Bell, Cruz, et al....I'd say the answer is Bill Dellinger in the 5K.

I didn't eliminate Bell. You did. Admittedly, I should have specified in the original post that I was including the 800 meters and the 1,500 meters as distance events. I did specify that later.

The 10k had a semifinal beginning in Munich and that format continued all the way through to Sydney in 2000 (I'm not sure about Moscow, but it's irrelevant in this case). There was no semifinal in Athens or Beijing.

Dellinger is not the right answer.

ex-stasi wrote:

Paul Geis

Bingo!

This is amazing. Paul Geis. Oregon has had so many great distance runners that I didn't even think about Geis. He was really not of the same level as a Chapa, Salazar, Pre, McChesney and so forth, in my opinion. Rudy Chapa would have been a near automatic had he not chosen to go into Medical school right after his senior year at Oregon.

One of the assumptions of the question, winds up pointing to how great Frank Shorter was. In Munich, on August 31, he ran the semis of the 10000 in 27:58. He then came in fifth in the finals on September 3, running 27:51, for a new American record. Seven days later on September 10 he won the Olympic Marathon.

David Mack, 800?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mack_

(police_officer)

Chapa never attended medical school, he was an IU law school grad.While a law student, he did run a 2;11 marathon in '83 (after finishing his college eligibility in '81).

Just Dandy wrote:

This is amazing. Paul Geis. Oregon has had so many great distance runners that I didn't even think about Geis. He was really not of the same level as a Chapa, Salazar, Pre, McChesney and so forth, in my opinion. Rudy Chapa would have been a near automatic had he not chosen to go into Medical school right after his senior year at Oregon.