Letsrun has a surprising history of starting some pretty cool and useful movements among the running community.
Looking for ideas on turning my dreams of a Winter Olympic cross country race into reality.
If it doesn't start here, where will it?
Discus.
The winter Olympics already have enough SCRAWNY dudes through ski jumping.
But I see potential to include indoor CrossFit. Then, people would actually watch the winter Olympics.
Hills and Thrills wrote:
Letsrun has a surprising history of starting some pretty cool and useful movements among the running community.
Looking for ideas on turning my dreams of a Winter Olympic cross country race into reality.
If it doesn't start here, where will it?
Discus.
For the last freakin' time: the surface on which ALL winter olympic sports are performed is ice or snow. X-C *can* be performed on snow, but that is not how it usually performed, and that surface is not integral to its performance.
You want to push for a SUMMER OG X-C event, or a Winter OG snow shoe race.
That is all.
What "cool and useful movements" has letsrun started?
Knead2no wrote:
What "cool and useful movements" has letsrun started?
I don't want to take all credit for this but:
- countless runners have started incorporating CrossFit style sprint repeats after I posted that monumental threat (since deleted)
- shift from carb focused to paleo kinda diets for runners gaining traction among elites
Tyrannosaurus Rexing wrote:
Hills and Thrills wrote:Letsrun has a surprising history of starting some pretty cool and useful movements among the running community.
Looking for ideas on turning my dreams of a Winter Olympic cross country race into reality.
If it doesn't start here, where will it?
Discus.
For the last freakin' time: the surface on which ALL winter olympic sports are performed is ice or snow. X-C *can* be performed on snow, but that is not how it usually performed, and that surface is not integral to its performance.
You want to push for a SUMMER OG X-C event, or a Winter OG snow shoe race.
That is all.
What he said.
And to do a summer XC you have to get rid of the track 10,000.
Do the XC event at the end, allowing 5000m runners and steeplers to come back for it.
For the last freakin' time: the surface on which ALL winter olympic sports are performed is ice or snow. X-C *can* be performed on snow, but that is not how it usually performed, and that surface is not integral to its performance.
This.
Otherwise cyclocross would already be part of winter olympics.
Knead2no wrote:
What "cool and useful movements" has letsrun started?
My bowel movement this morning. Thanks
Xfit_guy_the_real_1 wrote:
Knead2no wrote:What "cool and useful movements" has letsrun started?
I don't want to take all credit for this but:
- countless runners have started incorporating CrossFit style sprint repeats after I posted that monumental threat (since deleted)
- shift from carb focused to paleo kinda diets for runners gaining traction among elites
Those don't qualify as either 'cool' or 'useful'. Now the guy that took the dump might be on to something.
Hills and Thrills wrote:
Discus.
Discus in the Winter Olympics? That's a great idea!
Put XC in the Summer Olympics, but do it on the first day. That gives everyone doing the 5000 and 10000 about a week to recover and gives the marathoners close to two weeks before their race.
Plus, it gives us something to watch early on other than boring swimming.
Also, set it up like this:
each nation that qualfies gets to run 7 individuals.
5 of these members have to be also representing your country in one of the track and field events or in the marathon.
The other two can be running only the XC race.
They would need to come up with some qualifying standard to limit the race to the just 10-15 countries.
No individual runners from countries that can't qualify a team.
No individual medals.
Trade the track 10k for a XC event. The XC track should include water crossings . Much for interesting than the snooze-fest the track 10k has become.
*much more...
Berty wrote:
Put XC in the Summer Olympics, but do it on the first day. That gives everyone doing the 5000 and 10000 about a week to recover and gives the marathoners close to two weeks before their race.
Plus, it gives us something to watch early on other than boring swimming.
Also, set it up like this:
each nation that qualfies gets to run 7 individuals.
5 of these members have to be also representing your country in one of the track and field events or in the marathon.
The other two can be running only the XC race.
They would need to come up with some qualifying standard to limit the race to the just 10-15 countries.
No individual runners from countries that can't qualify a team.
No individual medals.
Putting XC in the summer olympics would just create an incredibly watered down level of competition in the XC event. Think of all the Galens that wouldn't do it for fear of getting injured before their main event on the track?
Maybe put XC after track but that would require a total overhaul of the Olympic Schedule.
It would be really cool to see XC in the winter olympics, but to be honest, it doesn't really fit. Every single sport in the winter olympics consists of SLIDING on ice or snow in some fashion. Yes, we all know there can be plenty of sliding in XC races, but that is ultimately not the point of the sport.
Scobert Ranlon wrote:
It would be really cool to see XC in the winter olympics, but to be honest, it doesn't really fit. Every single sport in the winter olympics consists of SLIDING on ice or snow in some fashion. Yes, we all know there can be plenty of sliding in XC races, but that is ultimately not the point of the sport.
It does not "not really" fit. It 100% doesn't fit.
Summer olympics for X-C. Maybe 13.1 miles. Throw in some tough mudder style obstacles. This will make lots of people happy at once (the "we need x-c in the olympics" crowd, the "we need a 1/2 marathon in the olympics" crowd, and the "we need the tough mudder in the olympics" crowd. Ok mostly joking about that last part, but make it a really rough x-c course)
Knead2no wrote:
What "cool and useful movements" has letsrun started?
Letsrun made Kip Litton a household name.
I'm thinking 12k xc. But to be honest, I ran the 10k in college and would hate to see it removed from the Olympic track schedule.
XC was Olympic Sport in 1912, 20, and 24. After '24 it was banned from the games. Also, there is XC in the games as part of the Pentathlon.
You will never see XC in the games as it will pull from the quality of the track events or have a bunch of B-teamers competing. And as said previously. ..XC is not a winter sport. We will see another fringe sports added but adding XC will crowd an already crowded athletics schedule.
Alan
I would be all for a 12k team XC race.
If it is in addition to the 10000, you make the xc on day 1, right out of the gate. That way the men anyway can recover for the marathon if they want. Maybe you have to move the womens marathon to the end of the meet. You make sure the 10000 has no heats -not sure if it does now or not. Or you give people a bye to the OG 10000 final if they finish in the top 20 at the xc race, or something.
or you just cancel the 10,000. I would be fine with that - it's a relic - I would not miss it at all, esp if we got a 12k xc race instead.
The problem of course is room in the olympic village - apparently the IOC won't let the athlete count go up.
I will say this - if a european country had a prayer of a medal in an olympic games xc meet, it would happen.
if it will be only east africans...much less chance.
the east african stranglehold on distance running is really damaging in the long run.
All valid points. Can we all agree that an XC race would be vastly more entertaining than a 10k??? It would also be a better test of necessary human capacity, which is the purpose of the games. Way, way more important and spectator friendly than what Mo Farah does.
So let's say we do summer Olys instead, what does the course look like?