Peach Pit wrote:
It sucks that BTC has been so untransparent (opaque?), that a runner saying their training isn't going well sounds suspicious. People bashed on NOP for being shady, but they never did anything like this. Hell, Rupp ran like 13:20 2 weeks before he ran 26:44, which people thought was a bit shady, and he explained that he didn't feel great during his 13:20 because he'd been at his wife's side because they were expecting twins. Even if AlSal did a bunch of grey-area stuff, at least they were always hyping up the races they were doing, not dodging competition, and announced when they were going for records well ahead of time.
I feel like so much of BTC's sins would be forgiven if they raced a couple more times per season, did a few more interviews, and had a bit more public presence. I really enjoyed the interviews they gave after their indoor 5k. Fisher and Ahmed both seemed really nice and charismatic, and like they both looked up to each other. It's hard to not root for someone who you see a lot being really nice (OAC's Coffee Club Podcast for example). It sucks that the two fastest guys in North America have been radio silent since March, one day away from the 10k championships.
T&F pros wanted to be treated like pros, respected like pros, paid like pros, then they should behave like pros. Cranny may have great reasons not to compete, but she should call a press conference, announce this publicly and answer questions. No? She’s not a back of the packer, she was the prohibitive favorite and everybody expected her to represent the US in this event later this summer.