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 Where Your Dreams Become Reality |
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You are reporting the following post to the moderators for review and possible removal from the forum Poster: I think this is good Subject: RE: Mottram: Another Message to the Americans Body: "Granted it would be difficult for an American to show up in Ostrava"--goodness gracious: it would be more than difficult. One doesn't run a hard 10,000 or 5,000 in the Nationals and just jet over somewhere. So stop such nonsense. On the substantive front, Webb regularly runs in Golden League events. Ritz has been injured a great deal, but he did go to Rome last year. Teg has run a few Golden Leagues and will run many more. Abdi has run several. Rupp will no doubt run many. Now, Mottram is a great runner, and for 5,000 he has run faster than any American ever has, and it would not surprise me if he medals in Osaka, but what in the world has that to do with the quality of American distance running? Nothing as far as I can tell. That one man is great does not mean that others are not very, very good, improving, and getting close. And just as a prediction, it would not surprise me at all if two Americans run under 13:00 this summer.
Timing is everything. Symmonds is a middle distance runner. Teg got easily handled at PRE, and struggled at US champs. Ryan Hall ran a fantastic half marathon in Jan, yes. A great debut marathon. But that has nothing to do with international TRACK competition, which is the object of discussion here. Where is your boy Ritz-he's a track specialist, right? Do you honestly believe Ritz could compete with that field in Ostrava? Honestly? Perhaps in the future, perhaps. But it takes guts to actually show up at these races first, and then real big balls to compete. I give credit to Blincoe - at least he showed up. (granted, it would be difficult for an American to show up in Ostrava after Nationals, but when was the last time you saw a top American distance athlete compete in a Golden League event? I'm sure Ritz has had the opportunity. Why not take it? In the end, Americans have to go to Europe if they want respect, if they want to compete on an international level, and when they have the opportunity, they turn it down. Why?[/quote] Hit the submit button below if you want us to review the post. If you feel this is urgent or want a reply, email us at letsrun@letsrun.com about the post and please include a link to the thread the post is on and what page number/post on that page it is
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