World xc course' NCAA coaches would be whining and moaning so much about how it was dangerous.'

I though that was a very cool course.

The US champ course was kind of vanilla.

And, they should put in some real hills! (40 feet elevation gain - c'mon)

wejo wrote:

I loved rojos comment in the article on the fro t page. It is so true.

While I do think NCAA cross country courses should be more difficult and there is some merit that coaches like to whine about pointless things... it should be understood that the World Championships and the NCAA Championships are vastly different events that should have different course requirements because the logistics are different. Maybe NCAA courses should be more challenging but if there is an inference that a World Championship course and an NCAA Championship course should be automatically interchangeable should be considered flawed. A logical consideration for the differences in the two events is important in determining course requirements.

The NCAA Championship has 255 participants (31 teams + 38 individual qualifiers) per gender. The World Championships continues to shrink in size and last year only 15 countries/teams participated in the men's race with a total of only 96 finishers. Since the return of a single race at worlds (there was a time seven year's ago where there were two races, long course and short course) the average number of countries/teams has only been 16 and the average number of finishers is 127 (for men).

Due to different field sizes at the World Championship and arguably less dense overall packs of runners the World's course can logistically have shorter straightaways, more turns, narrower paths, more obstacles, etc... without causing the same problems it would in the larger NCAA Championship.

To make NCAA cross country more "European" we would need to decrease field size at our championship to make it logistically possible. It certainly would take more than a few indirect jabs at coaches in a letsrun.com article.

Lastly, don't discount that some professional coaches and national teams coaches may be complaining too. The logs on the World's course a few year's back did cause some injuries if I remember correctly. A good course is challenging, but the most creative course is not always the best one.

May I present Exhibit A...

You also have to consider that NCAA courses should be challenging, but not dangerous, as these are not professional athletes. Host sites can't realistically make the course with such obstacles & terrain changes that drastically increase the probability of injury. Yes, running on a golf course-esque loop is a bit "vanilla", but to say that the NCAA course needs to come close to the Worlds course is a bit of an overreach. While all NCAA courses shouldn't be so easy that they are "Rupp certified", they shouldn't be a total grinder for the kids competing.

I would like to see NCAA XC on a more challenging course. Not as extreme as the World XC layout, and not every year, but I think it would be cool to have it on a course with a big-time hill or some "features" such as those at World XC.

I think you'd get more of an honest race. The top guys wouldn't want to get caught in traffic on a course like that as they'd have a much higher chance of falling and it would be harder to pass. It would be a real 10k as opposed to a glorified 2k (which NCAAs was last year on the men's side).

like footlocker....

The courses at Iowa State or Kansas (Rim Rock) were great courses that were fair but far more challenging than Terre Haute. I feel like those type of courses are a good middle ground between the World's courses and the boring golf course college courses.

Cross Country has had obstacles ever since it started. The US has lost the plot.

This is how it should be.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2wkVcMFDoI