| Culture Clash |
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Overall, do you think the United States or Europe has the better distance/mid-distance talent (800-marathon)? Looking quickly at the IAAF lists it looks like the US gets the slight edge but it seems to be basically equal. |
| fat man |
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I wouldn't even say it's that close. if you look farther down on the list it is pretty obvious the United States has much more depth when it comes to distance runners, especially European born distance runners. I have never been able to explain why Europe as a whole can't produce better distance runners, especially when compared to the United States. There are about 700 million people on the continent, it's a relatively affluent place (especially western europe), sports are very popular there, and the population as a whole is much more fit then the population of the US. |
| uh_no |
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1. Farah 2. everyone in the US 3.rest of europe thats pretty much how it shakes out |
| t94bell |
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I'd say USA has the advantage for having half the population of Europe. They don't get kicked around of course, but the USA usually has the edge on them. |
| dr poppylock |
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In most of Europe soccer is king, there is simply not a focus on any other sports, especially one as minor on the world stage as distance running. The US has a bit more "diversity" when it comes to sport. Football maybe the most popular but baseball, basketball, nascar, hockey,etc all have huge followings thus talent is spread more evenly across many sports. More minor sports like distance running, swimming, volleyball etc also have a decent following which can be at least partially accredited to the NCAA system because they give out scholarships and support to these less popular sports, thus providing more of an incentive to take up sports like distance running. |
| Fine fine |
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Europe as a whole is pretty dismal when it comes to runners, especially European born runners. The entire continent of Europe is about on par with Australia when it comes to distance running, pretty sad considering Australia has about 1/40th the population of Europe. |
| coach d |
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In Deagu in mid distance, US and Russia tied with 2 medals each, behind Kenya with 4: (1) What happened to the rest of Europe, particular the UK that gave us Coe, Cram, Ovett, Elliott, etc? You can't say they aren't fast enough, because those guys would have medaled. USA had Scott in the 1980's, and Webb, Krumm, and Wheating all running 3:31 or faster in the last 5 years or so. Europe has Kszczot and that's it? And what of people like Cacho, Estevez, Heshko, Baala--they don't have people like that anymore, why? (2) There was precisely ONE caucasian medalist for the entire world in distances over 1500m--a Russian SC. |
| Parochial Boy |
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But at the same time, Europe fares much better when it comes to field events, eg hammer, discus, javelin, pole vault. Could there be a degree of sticking to what you know your good at? And also, Europe is made up of a lot of small national federations which don't have the ecomoies of scale that you get in the USA. There is less scope for training groups made up of the best runners from across the continent, unlike the Oregon groups in the USA. |
| ukathleticscoach |
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'I have never been able to explain why Europe as a whole can't produce better distance runners, especially when compared to the United States. There are about 700 million people on the continent, it's a relatively affluent place (especially western europe), sports are very popular there, and the population as a whole is much more fit then the population of the US.' Athletics is basically still an amateur sport over here, in the US you at least have college funding for scholarships and paid coaches Sure the top few make money but how do you get there To get lottery funding you have to approach world class level. How do you get to that level without funding. If you do make it.... wow 25k a year. An average pro soccer player cold make that in a week. For most soccer players this is still just a dream but at least a few hundred in the uk csn reach something like that more and hundreds more in lower paid leagues. We are still crap at soccer but that's a different story! If someone paid a few coaches and fully funded 50 of uk top teenagers to go training for 3 years in Kenya or Ethiopia we could get somewhere. Nobody will pay for this instead they send a few kids for a couple of wks there and expect results. No chance. Plus when I was younger, runners would have gone over there lived cheap and given it a go. Nowadays no chance, they would rather get an easy degree then sit on benefits when they can't get a job afterwards A lot of uk runners are now going through the US college system and getting results. Trouble is due to massive over racing, racing doubles and all that crap most are stuffed with injuries at the end of it Runners themselves don't help a there are thousands of recreational runners who take no interest in elite athletics, so money from tv is taking a dive. All they want is to jog round and get their pic on facebook uk athletics will only pay coaches who are in managerial roles. So they have an area and give some unwanted advice to coaches. Ours is a sprints and throws specialist! When I want advice I can ask friends who have coached champion distance runners or come on here (although its easy yo have an argument but difficult to get any actual coaching help on here!). It's doing running and coaching and putting real money towards that that gets results not setting up some stucture and talking about it like it's a business |
| Running on Empathy |
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This is so obvious .... (1) Progressivism promotes cultural emasculation of the male population (2) Europe is farther down the road of Progressivism than is the US. (3) Don't worry - the US will *catch up* with Europe here in short order the way things are going .... BTW - Can it not be argued that European mid-dist/dist women are on average better than American women? |
| emasculated eddy |
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I agree. On the women's side of things the Europe tends to look stronger then the United States which I would expect considering the huge population advantage Europe has. The fact that the European women are doing much better on the world stage compared to European men looks like it lends a bit of credence to your "emasculation" theory but we have to remember that on the world-wide scale women's athletics just aren't as competitive or deep as men's athletics. With the exception of Europe, North America, and Oceania women aren't exactly encouraged to do sports. |
| dispon |
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what ever happen to that Sergio Sanchez fellow from Spain? He was having a break-out season a year or so ago. |