Nuguse, Wayment, Garcia Romo, Steelman sign with On Athletics Club

Agree that it is a good marketing hire. She has charisma. My 17 year-old daughter for example was not a fan of some of the other BYU runners, but likes Wayment a lot. She just seems likable.

Nuguse is the 1500m AR collegiate holder (even though Columbia’s Merber did it before super shoes). Kipsang is not American. Yared is.

In addition, how many NCAA titles does Oli Hoare have? Why people harp on Nuguse like he was some failure at the championships level I don't understand. He battled some injuries, but pushing the eventual Olympics 6th placer to the line and crushing Garcia-Romo, Kipsang, Suliman etc. in the process was an all-time excellent NCAA performance not a failure because he got second.

Agreed. You can probably count on one hand the number of collegiates in history that would have beat Nuguse closing a 3:35 race in 52/1:49 that day. Unfortunately for him, he ran into one of them.

Ritz definitely wanted to coach Wayment.

Diljeet Taylor has an iron grip on all of her athletes.

It is what it is.

Sure but Merber only ran about 1480m that day

BYU athletes that have significantly improved after college?

Jared Ward and ...

Jason Pyrah?

Generally not a great investment.

From what I've heard is Ritz is pretty against a big team of people competing with each other for global teams.

So now for the men you have the 1500 group will have Hoare, Nuguse, and Romo representing 3 different countries. The 5k group Beamish, McDonald, Klecker representing 3 different countries.

If you bring in Wayment (who probably preferred to stay with Taylor) and Steelman you would have 3 US steeplers competing for 3 spots. Not the easiest way to add numbers to global teams.

I had a friend who was in talks with joining OAC after graduating last year, but Klecker was their US 5k/10k guy, and Ritz wasn't super interested in adding another.

I don't know if I would call it an "iron grip" so much as just saying her athletes really like her. She's extremely dedicated to them and provides not only coaching but also social support that probably works really well for some athletes.

This article really helped me understand why people like her so much:

runnersworld.com

She Wasn’t Supposed to Make a Career Out of Running. Now She Can’t Stop Winning.

Diljeet Taylor is redefining what it means to coach—along the way, she’s turned BYU into a women’s distance running powerhouse

Open link

(Can use reader mode to overcome paywall)

Reader mode was a really nice tip.Thanks!

Interesting to hear, very different philosophy from BTC where they have 4 U.S. athletes in the 5,000m final.

23 YO 5th year with the Covid 19 add on, She ran for Coach Johnny Bomar at Wofford 2017 through March of 2020, 2019 NCAAs 3rd in 3000sc & 8th in the 5000.

Does this company even make a super spike? What will these athletes wear for races?

Klecker was in ON spikes when he recently won the US 10000m champs. He quickly removed them after the race; not sure if due to foot discomfort.

To anyone watching, he very clearly removed them to show them off to the cameras. It was very obvious he was pandering to the camera by wearing them and displaying them in his hand while on top of the medal stand.

Excellent marketing move IMO, as I noticed and was intrigued. I’m sure others were as well. He was likely advised to do so as a slap in the face to Nike, in the event of a victory.

This move has been around for a while, you'll see it most often when non-Nike athletes win global medals in Nike branded USA kit. Seidel, Coburn, Simpson are some recent examples.

I think Ritz is a great coach to have.

Not really that relevant (and might not be that interesting, lol) but in cross country skiing they get offered a separate pair of skis to hold during interviews by their support staff. (To make sure they are presentable, and so the other pair can be preserved to the next days competition).

Let's be real, he basically won the DMR.