Connor Mantz Falls Before Finish

I know he was battling an injury (possibly a femoral stress fracture?). Hope he's all right. Congrats to Collins, that's quite a scalp.

Was this the state meet? I looked up more info and the article made it sound like the race was the state championship. If so that's an epic outcome but it's hard to imagine anything epic happening on a Wednesday afternoon.

Multiple Wife Beater wrote:

Was this the state meet? I looked up more info and the article made it sound like the race was the state championship. If so that's an epic outcome but it's hard to imagine anything epic happening on a Wednesday afternoon.

There's no way it was a state championship unless XC states ended on a track. Aren't most states about to have their district meets?

It was the state championship. Don't know what happened to Mantz--he should be top 5 at footlocker easily. Dang.

was he in lead or?

I saw the video.

It was a the Utah cross country state championships. The last lap was on the track(occasionally happens on xc courses). Mantz had like a 25m lead and kept looking back. Then, with 40m to go the guy behind him catches up to him, Mantz falls(no contact was made, he was just really tired) and Mantz loses. Mantz gets up like 10 seconds later and stumbles to the finish. Very heartbreaking.

Looks like Collins, the guy who beat him, made a serious jump this year. Only Elijah Armstrong (6th at Footlocker as a junior), Tanner Anderson (3rd at NXN as a junior), and Mantz (7th at Footlocker and, before last week, I thought a threat to upset Fisher this year at Footlocker) beat Collins at Bob Firman a couple weeks ago.

I think Mantz is battling through some sort of injury, but that doesn't take anything from Collins. Great race for him, and I hope Mantz will get better, if indeed he is injured.

I know what happened to Mantz. It's a medical issue I won't talk about here, but he's had to take time off from running for some time now. His future running career should be fine since the problem is something kids outgrow. He's a great, talented kid, and for him to run the State meet considering the circumstances took major guts. Props to Conner. We fellow and former Utah high school runners love him and wish him the best. He'll be back. I know how he feels. In my senior year of cross country, I beat the eventual State champ twice during the season, got injured (torn adductor muscle), and stood watching the race from the sidelines. Conner has outdoor track season in the spring, and I hope he comes back with a vengeance and gets the big scholarship he deservers.

By the way, I had eye surgery today and it went well. Only on one eye. It's one of those things people deal with when they get older. I probably won't be online too much the rest of today and maybe tomorrow, but I knew the forum would miss me!

^ will he still try to run Footlocker?

We're all rooting for you Mantz!

Didn't he say he had a stress reaction?

How great would it be to see him comeback and win footlocker

ya wat wrote:

Didn't he say he had a stress reaction?

That's what UT milesplit says.

race finish @ 11:25 or so

If he worked on his form it might help him avoid these injuries. Wishing him all the best as he is one of our rising distance stars. Think of what he could do with more efficient form.

rupp-certified saladbar wrote:

If he worked on his form it might help him avoid these injuries. Wishing him all the best as he is one of our rising distance stars. Think of what he could do with more efficient form.

Ok, I guess I'll comment on this again. Conner is a very smart runner with a great coach. In my running book, Running: A Long Distance Love Affair, I comment on this. In one of his online journal entries Conner wrote about one tough workout, "I got a good recovery, and then I changed the workout to make it finishable, for how I was feeling at the time." That's smart training--a whole lot smarter than I did in high school, and you can see how it's paid off for Conner. Over and over again, Conner and his excellent coach make the right calls on his workouts depending on how he's feeling. He trains hard, but he also trains smart.

The injury has nothing to do with his form or training mistakes. A non-ossified fibroma (look it up so I don't have to define it for you) is something that can afflict young, growing kids. It's almost always asymptomatic (no symptoms). It usually occurs in the femur or the tibia. In Conner's case, as a hard-training distance runner, it simply showed up because of the stresses that all dedicated distance runners endure, especially those of us who compete or have competed in our lives. The condition almost always corrects itself--the fibroma is replaced by normal, healthy bone tissue--by the time a person reaches their 20s. But with some time off and some therapy, there's still hope for the outdoor track season. Regardless, I think Conner has shown that he is one of the best high school runners in the country, and with the possible exception of Ben Saarel, perhaps the best high school runner ever in the State of Utah. (Ed Eyestone went on to great things, but he never ran close to Conner's best track times in high school.) From everything I've heard about Conner, he is a fine young man. Not to take anything away from the other runner who won the Utah State meet, Conner wasn't at his best that day. Wish him well because he deserves it. He's already accomplished more in running than most of us ever will, and I believe he's got a great post-high school career ahead of him.

Here's a good article from a local Utah newspaper.

http://news.hjnews.com/allaccess/injured-mantz-nearly-defends-a-title/article_dd422cb6-5a71-11e4-a390-1b5edd625067.html

When I was in high school, I had a different childhood ailment called Osgood-Schlatter Disease. Yeah, it sounds terrible. Like a fibroma, it's something that often shows up under stress and it goes away as you grow a little older, the big growth spurt stops, and the bones cease outgrowing the tendons. It was painful, and I had to have my left leg in a plaster cast for a few weeks, but things were fine after that. Same thing with Conner. I think he'll be just fine. I admire him for not using an injury as an excuse, and Josh Collins did run a great race with a really good kick at the end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osgood-Schlatter_disease

I was in that race, I have raced both those kids tons of times. Josh Collins had a great race, he tied the 4A state record. A healthy Mantz would have taken Luke Puskedra's all-time state record. Josh didn't win this race, Conner lost it due to an unlucky injury.

Looks like he pulled a SFH when he knew he wouldn't win.

ShaqDiesel wrote:

Looks like he pulled a SFH when he knew he wouldn't win.

I don't think so. He fell really hard and it looks like he might have hit his face, if he was faking it he probably wouldn't have fell that hard.