Can Donn Cabral get some love?

Very good run for Donn, but he would not have won had Jager stayed upright. Are they not about the same age anyways ?

jager is a year older. still, pretty close

Literally 0 posts before it became not about cabrawler :/

To Sisyphus: Congrats, you've had so much to do with his success. Well done!

ASU GUY wrote:

Very good run for Donn, but he would not have won had Jager stayed upright. Are they not about the same age anyways ?

Clearly you have not witnessed the devastating "Cabral cannon" kick. He would have gobbled Jäger up in the final straightaway. They are almost the same age-I think Jäger is a year older, but has obviously had the advantage of being professional for 3-4 years now, while Donn has to juggle his running with Princeton academics. He and Chris Derrick are the kind of guys you would want your kids to be like.

I've been a Donn Cabral fan since he's been doing the steeple! Last night at Oxy he looked so unbelievably smooth over the barriers and in particular the water pit. Huge step towards post collage athletics now with a steeple focus! After finishing 2nd two years in a row this guy needs to catch a break. A performance like that is gonna give some huge confidence. No doubt in my mind that he could very well be in London this summer...

Hits the Oly A in a big win, this guy has been delivering every time he steps on the line since he was a sophomore in high school.

CT Representin.[/quote]

The headline at the very top of the homepage of LetsRun.com - which is probably the most trafficked track page in the world if you don't consider RW a track page - Donn Cabral Collegiate AR!

I guess you also don't read the articles that we stayed up til 4:00 am writing.

http://www.letsrun.com/2012/oxymen-0519.php

As for the 'cannon kick', I don't think Cabral was going to get him as he was pretty far back but Cabral's kick is pretty sick right now so I'm not 100% ruling it out.

Plus I'd like to see video of Jager's fall to see if he fell because he was tiring or because he tried to vault it.

ASU GUY wrote:

Very good run for Donn, but he would not have won had Jager stayed upright. Are they not about the same age anyways ?

When a fall happens in a normal flat race like the 5000, I think it's appropriate to say who "would have won". But in a steeple the barriers and falls happening are a part of the purpose of the race. Jager couldn't handle the normal parameters of the race so Donn beat him, fair and square, no asterisks.

Does Cabral sleep in an altitude tent? Is that normal among collegians?

Are you asking "do most D1 runners sleep in altitude tents"? Obviously not. Other than Cabral the only guy I know of who did it was Rupp.

Justin Curtis also slept in an altitude tent.

ytcfgvh wrote:

In a steeple the barriers and falls happening are a part of the purpose of the race. Jager couldn't handle the normal parameters of the race so Donn beat him, fair and square, no asterisks.

What? Quit saying that. Staying upright is part of the purpose of any race. If someone falls in XC and loses, would you say the same thing? What about on a normal track race? Of course the parameters of any race include staying upright and moving forward. Jager had a bit of bad luck and Donn won as a result, not because of talent or hard work, just random luck at the expense of another runner. Then he celebrated, which is very unsportsmanlike.

I think the win should be negated due to unsportsmanlike conduct.

I think he was celebrating his huge PR, hitting the A standard, and winning a race against professional runners. I think you were sitting on your couch watching through the internet.

Ghrelin wrote:

I think he was celebrating his huge PR, hitting the A standard, and winning a race against professional runners. I think you were sitting on your couch watching through the internet.

There is no place for celebration in Track & Field. It just isn't right. Runners are not emotional.

I say we ban him from any further competition.

I was a steeple guy myself and was giving Jager the benefit of the doubt. He has run two steeples ever. 8:26 and now 8:21 Cabrel has been running them for at least two years. give Jager his props yes he is a pro who made a worlds team, but he is a baby in the steeple and made a tiny error. both guys could make the final this summer and that would be fantastic for the upcoming US steeplers.

Yes, one of the purposes in any race is to stay upright so you can get to the finish first. But in the steeple, barriers are put there to make it more challenging to stay upright. If you fall in the 5000 meters, it's a freak accident. Things do get bunched up and get physical sometimes but that physicality isn't manufactured into the race, it's just the way it has to be. In XC you do see a little more of a challenge manufactured into the race with sloppy terrain, tree roots, holes, etc(although you're seeing less and less of that in D1 xc). So in XC if someone is slow because of the terrain or falls because they slipped in the mud, that falls under getting beat because of the purposeful nature of the race itself. But a fall in xc could still be partly an accident because not everyone is necessarily going to hit the same mud pit or hole in the grass. In the steeple, there are barriers manufactured into the race that everyone hits an equal amount of times. They all have an equal chance of biffing it on the water jump and ruining themselves. If this was Donn Cabral's second steeple race he may have face planted too.

They way I see it is that it's a sliding scale of terrain difficulty from the normal track races, to xc, to the steeple. Along the scale the objective of not falling becomes a bigger part of the race and blame for falling shifts from bad luck to skill. Would you not agree that Evan Jager is not as skilled at the barriers as Donn Cabral?

Although we don't know if Jager was: tired, hurdled it, or just missed with his plant foot, that is part of steeplechase. Cabral deserved the win and by any means may not have been expecting it after Jager pulled away.

Runnerspace gets a good angle of the fall.

http://www.runnerspace.com/video.php?video_id=67682-Mens-Steeplechase-Section-2-Oxy-High-Performance-Meet-2012

I don't doubt Cabral's kick but he may have been too far out to catch Jager. Jager at the most would've had a 2 sec lead giving him a 8:17 low.

It looks like he overstrided (over strode?) to avoid stutter stepping and missed the hurdle. His foot came down like he wanted to step on it. Kind of like when you think there's one more stair to step on and you go down?

He is a real gentleman and has always seemed to improve each year. There aren't too many runners who can say that. Why would anyone expect him not to celebrate for a major break through performance? I bet he would have done the same thing if he finished 3rd with his time. It was through no fault of his own the leader tripped. Lets hope there are greater things in store for him and Merber.