Michael Norman OUT of Worlds!

Well Deno you had the greatest ability of durability. Not everyone has that. Who knows but he has been battling tendinitis reportedly.

Moreover, you don't have to be at your 100% best every time you take the field in football, and you don't have to perform better than everyone on the field each time for your team to win. Track is different.

Yeah, this feels like The Great Pan-Am Pullout of 1983.

nytimes.com

SOME U.S. ATHLETES LEAVE GAMES AT CARACAS AMID STIFF DRUG TESTS (Published 1983)

By Frank Litsky

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Career…lol

What I truly believe is at the heart of this can be linked back to Naomi Osaka, Simone Biles et al and this opting out due to "mental health" movement that has become fashionable in pro sports.

Seriously though - they normalized it and due to a number of social factors super prevalent at the time (race and gender) and everybody bent over backwards to play the violins for these poor athletes who make a ton of money relative to the average citizen for playing sports that they freely choose to (which herein lies the big difference for me between actual mental health issues and sports psychology issues).

So now when things get tough - raised expectations, pressure to perform etc - there is no incentive anymore to tackle it head on and overcome it through strength of conviction. Why? Because with guaranteed $$$ it's easy to (in the case of Sydney McG 100% because NB do not have reductions clauses in their deals primarily because they "don't want to be like Nike"). And even with Nike, notorious for their hardline contracts with respect to "pay for performance" this also eased off considerably in recent years with the furore around the reductions in contracts for pregnancies (Felix, Montano, Goucher) and that spilled over into deals in general.

Like is it coincidence that we see this more and more since those "pioneers" of this movement got the ball rolling? Even a decade ago the thought of "skipping a worlds" to train for the next season or take a "well earned vacay after a stressful season of 2 races" was simply unthinkable. Mostly because your livelihood was at stake. Not anymore. And don't even start with "that's crazy these guys don't earn that much money" - well really they do if you compare it with the average American household and not the morally disgusting money that NBA players make to bounce a ball and throw it through a steel ring.

Training for next season? Minor knee injury? Don't insult our intelligence - these athletes don't want to run because guess what, track is hard and it's even harder mentally than it is physically. Why do you think all these guys need "higher powers" they convince themselves are out there with individual plans for them, that dictate their performances good or bad?

This is nothing more than running and hiding and taking full advantage of the current system to do so.

Did you just compare playing high school football and rec league flag football with competing at the world track and field championships?!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!

Who calls it quits the week of the world champs?

Do you really think a 44 second race compares to a football game?

Rookies sheesh.~~~~~~

Norman, on his last birthday, posted something on Insta that said he needed to find new motivation this year. Guess he couldn't find it during Christmas. New Years. Valentines Day. Presidents Day. Martin Luther King Day. Memorial Day. Juneteenth. Indepedence Day. Damn.

This is the only correct response. What an embarrassment. This sport is becoming so unbelievably unwatchable at the top level. A bunch of whiny, doped to the f'ing gills glass cannons that know before they even enter they won't compete.

Ask any collegiate, heck, even an above average HS, runner if they feel perfect all the time. 100% does not exist in the sport. Champions are those that can win the war of attrition through a season, rounds etc.

Norman has never really lived up to expectations, given it looked at one point he could be the next MJ. Yes, he won last year, but it was a weak field and the time was pedestrian for a world champs final. He then got jealous of Kerley's bag and thought he could replicate Fred in the 100, which he clearly can't.

I get that very few people actually "like" running the 400 because it can be brutal, but it's clear he will never be good enough in the 100 at least. He's run 19.5, but again, it would be tough for him to even make the team in the 200. Seems like his career is floundering and I wouldn't be surprised if next year is his last in the sport.

None of you can come close to understanding the pressure these athletes like Norman, Mu, SML are under.

Thing is the team I started out with the Green Machine folded after a decade of winning, so I needed another team, Got calls from everybody who couldn;t use the leagues best pass rusher? Decided to go with the Goshen Bombers. My pass rushing abilities kept a QB running and they had to keep a back in to block me......good luck.

Tooth Ugg Eels!!!

Wayde can. He took a massive beating. And bounced back.

Deno we know you were one of the greats but even some of the greats get injured sometimes. But it sounds as if you th in your flag football games were greater feats of athleticism than Bolt’s 9.58 due to the duration of the respective events.

Has this kind of thing happened in the past (twice)? Defending champions pulling out of the WC to "focus on the Olympics"? It's a year away ffs!

Yeah, where's the guy who's always pumping up LA, track capital of the world? LA does have more scratches from Worlds than any other city . . . I'll give it that. LA #1!