Jo72 wrote:
There is also a higher danger of injury...One bad fall or twisted ankle and you're out a few weeks at least.
Or worse! I've always wondered how Steph Twell's career would have gone if she hadn't busted up her ankle in Belgium.
Jo72 wrote:
There is also a higher danger of injury...One bad fall or twisted ankle and you're out a few weeks at least.
Or worse! I've always wondered how Steph Twell's career would have gone if she hadn't busted up her ankle in Belgium.
NO offense but what an awful course. It was an eyesore, looked like patches of grass and dirt cobbled together behind a sports field or a park, not scenic and pancake flat.
Ball up wrote:
Real runners would run XC or used to.
Shorter won several US titles, Rodgers finished 3rd in world XC, edging out Walker. Virgin did Ok. ingebrigtsen values it as did Ovett and Coe and all the top runners of that era.they were complete runners, Americans are time trailers.
If you go back in time you do see top US runners at our national cross country championships. As you mention, Shorter won several championships and his Florida Track Club often brought the big guns in hopes of winning the team championship. But back then the AAU meet was the national championship and was run the week after the NCAA championship.
That doesn't happen anymore. I'm not even completely sure we have a national championship anymore and if so which meet it is. Club Nationals are in December, still during cross country season. Then we added a February trial for the World's, which some people run with no intention of going to World's even if they qualify and which is long after our cross country season is over. I do think we'd get more top people at our nationals if it was in November after NCAAs. But who knows? Times change.
OP, this question has been asked for at least 20 years. And the answers are rather obvious.
#1 lack of money
#2 timing (Europe runs XC in the winter. America runs XC in the fall and indoor in the winter. A lot of that has to do with sprints and jumps being more competitive in America.)
#3 Europeans are tougher and XC is for tough people. Not McDonalds obsessed fat Americans.
poobird wrote:
It's not as exciting as track.
Not saying much when the only exciting track event is the 4x400, and that's only exciting outdoors. Indoors it's ridiculous.
The public likes violent team sports. XC could be revived if it is turned into a paintball or airsoft contest.
Not biased, just an observation wrote:
"Why do American professional distance runners don't care about Cross Country?"
Not a single poster is going to call out the OP for his "Why do they don't care" train wreck question?
Wow. Depending on how you look at it this is either a new high point or a new low point for let'srun.
Lol.
"IT is either..."
Well, they used to.