Lucia Stafford leaves Bowerman Track Club

Huh? Demonstrate what viable group options are out there.
Colleen Quigley- no longer races. Shill for whatever/whoever will pay her to hawk goods on her IG page

Sinclaire Johnson- went to former NOP group. Is that really a change?

Emily Infeld- training sessions with bf and occasionally others. Mixed results.

Gwen Jorgensen- “I don’t know, Margo”. Weird YouTube vids with far too many drills. Has not done anything of note since departure.

Marielle Hall- DOA, zero results

Kate Grace- breakout year with bosshard group. MIA indoors. Has not been seen with group for weeks.

Gabriela DeBues-Stafford- see previous LRC thread. Will likely leave this situation within 2-3 years for next sparkly thing dangled in front of her

Lucia Stafford- back to pre-BTC coach

do you know what "DOA" means... ?

also, Kate Grace was clearly thriving post BTC but she has long covid.

Yes, I agree LRC does a better job of this than Citius Mag and the rest. It's a common problem in sports journalism that asking tough questions can mean losing access, because they don't HAVE to talk to anyone. But my point is more that BTC needs to give satisfactory answers if they want fans, and fans should be expressing this to the team, whether on social media or in person at races.

Yep, exactly what is written. Have you seen anything from Hall? One of my favorite runners, but just completely disappeared.

I’d heard about the covid, which is a real shame. Unfortunately, Grace will struggle to reach similar heights. Though, not from the virus. Whether you’d admit it or not, those years of strength she developed with BTC were on full display last year with her consistency in fast times and longevity of the season. Pity that Jerry didn’t tap into the part of the puzzle that was obviously missing. It’s a similar case with Falcon’s year (1990) post McDonnell.

All these damn downvotes, when someone just listed a slew of women for leaving for unhinged, diva reasons. It's sad people have to lie to themselves about basic truths.

I know for a fact that Phil Knight cut Chavez and Co. a pretty nice check over at Citius. So no surprise about the lack of hard hitting journalism.

I wonder if Houlihan has remained on the payroll this entire time and is allowed to use Nike resources in exchange for keeping quiet about other people at BTC? Is it possible that she threatened to divulge information on BTC medalists and NR holders if the company cut her off completely? And this is why she is still seen training at Nike headquarters, following BTC to altitude camps, and getting the enthusiastic defense of the coaching staff?

This image always makes me wonder how far back things go. It could simply be celebrating a big win, but everything that has happened since makes me think it could be more than that.

Despite the downvotes, I actually agree with this post. Most (aside from Grace) women who left BTC have had poor results. And there are actually a decent number of good women's groups in the US.

What the hell are the men supposed to do? Pete Julian's group has nothing to offer at 5k-10k (and is NOP even any better than BTC?). Maybe they go to OTC and train with a washed up Hassan Mead and Pat Tiernan? BTC is basically the only high performance 5k-10k group in the country, and if you limit it to Nike only groups, that list becomes way smaller.

I keep waiting to hear some big scandal come out of bowerman. why else are so many people leaving? but it hasn't happened. so maybe something is going on or maybe they all just have personal reasons for leaving. its not the only team that is going through this. take a look at NAZ elite. I think people are just re-evaluating what they want.

I'm not one for conspiracy, but this seems pretty likely given the facts.

Could be, but I'll play the cynic role and say it's one doper beating another. The sad truth may just be that this picture isn't a triumph of an anti-doper over a doper, but rather a 1-2 punch of doper(s) over the rest of the field.

I highly doubt any of the BTC runners was/is clean. The analogy would be Floyd Landis.

But also I doubt BTC thinks she cheated bc I think they view doping as a necessity. Like it or not this is a doping sport like sprinting, cycling or cross-country skiing, and to be competitive at the highest reaches of the sport requires chemistry. They probably see SH as the victim of selective enforcement.

Agree with this completely. Every BTC athlete and coach should be asked whether they train with, or on the same track as a convicted doper. From what GDS said, there is definitely a coaching relationship between Houlihan and Schumacher and GDSs suggestion of Shelby training 30 minutes later than the group was rejected out of hand. That says, to me, that she is training either with the group or at the same time on the opposite side of the track. BTC is either breaking anti-doping regulations, or it is pushing at the boundaries of acceptability, breaking the spirit of the regulations if not the letter. Everyone on that team needs to be accountable for that, accountable for their own decision to train in a murky coaching situation

I think it has more to do with Quigley being jealous of Shelby's success, so she was (rightfully) thrilled to finally beat her.

So who are the five BTC women left? Karissa, Elise, Courtney, ?

To be fair, the group really did get too big before. I can understand why it's hard to manage so many people when you combine men and women. Even though the group is smaller, is it really all that dissimilar from other pro groups in terms of numbers?

From the outside.. it does seem very odd.
The womens team went from being one of the biggest on pro level, to barely a group.

what is really going on??

Does no one want associated with her/Jerry?

is it Jerry’s training and constant injury cycle that younger athletes have just decided they don’t want that? Because aside from possible drugs, thst would be enough to steer me away from BTC- it seems an alarming number of his athletes end up having major surgery to repair their bone damage, likely caused from his high relentless training.

it is sad.. I used to enjoy following the group, and now it’s like they dissolved under a year..

I just think Jerry is like the Jim Harbaugh of coaches. Probably best for 5-6 years for most athletes. Just by nature of his rigidity and very intense system, it's going to leave a lot of athletes behind (Hall, Infeld, Quigley, Grace, Derrick, Bumbalough, Sinclaire) through near-constant injury after some success or the system just not being a fit.

Obviously there're exceptions to this like Frerichs or Mo Ahmed. Most of the departures have more to with these factors than what we're seeing with the Stafford sisters. Jerry seems to be a very stubborn guy so I wouldn't expect much to change as far as accommodations for athletes who are injured, struggling to adjust, or uncomfortable with him training Shelby as close to the team as he legally can.

That's probably true of every coach who has a cookie cutter system. Once your body adapts, you need a new stimulus. After 6 years of the heavy mileage, a plateau is inevitable. Even Ingebrigtsen has talked about maxing out what he can achieve with his lactate heavy training. Athletes who have left BTC have made it clear that Schumacher doesn't adapt training to his athletes, they just follow his system so there is a natural lifespan to improvement for anyone