Ritz 3rd behind Lebid and Baldini

Ritz.....is going to live with the name "crackhome" for the rest of his life on letsrun.com :)

I just took time to translate the piece. Maybe this will be easier to read for everyone:

_________

"The surprise of the fast race was American Dathan Ritzenhein. The 22-year old arrived in Bozen on Friday as a nobody, but pushed the pace in the second half of the race. A group of nine runners formed the lead pack after 2000 meters, but after 3500 only seven runners remained. After 6000 meters it was the U.S. guy Ritzenhein who led the pace and settled in with Olympic Marathon Champion Stefano Balidini, Sergiy Lebid and the Morrocan Jaouad Gharib. The African, however, couldn't maintain the pace either and fell back.

And with that the way was open for the lead trio of Ritzenhein, Lebid and Baldini to fight for the win among themselves. And just as in previous years, so in this one, Sergiy Lebid was not to be beaten in the final sprint. The Ukrainian pulled away from Ritzenhein and Baldini — who had to be content to fight it out for second place — and won in 28:23 minutes. Stefano Baldini came in second and Dathan Ritzenhein came in third place just behind him."

Ritz turned 22 yesterday.

what is Lebid's 10k PR, has he even run as fast as Dathan?

Baldini is going a little at 10k........Ritz should have been up there

28:23 on cobblestone. Very hard course. This guy is very good.

"Baldini is going a little at 10k"

????

Care to clarify?

was this 10k? what was Ritz's time?

gv10k wrote: Sooooo.....Ritzenhein translates to "Crack House"? That's F'ing hilarious! I suggest we all refer to him as Crack House from now on, what a sweet nickname.

They misspelled his name in the article as Ritzenheim instead of Ritzenhein. "Heim" in German is "Home" in English. Bummer -- that was a great nickname.

Doesnt matter to me.

Dathan Ritzenhein is now "Crack Home"

crackhome!

told ya wrote:

So this was the first race Ritz could cash some money! :)

Brad Hudson's programme seems to work pretty well...

You could be right...but let's be real for a minute. Ritz in general just seems to work when he's not hurt...two time Hs champion, 3 time 2 mile champion, 3rd in world juniors XC...a NCAA XC champion, the Collegiate 10k record holder just this past fall. This is sorta of expected from him after everything he's accomplished regardless of injuries.

What coach's program didn't work for him when he was healthy? He's just an amazing competitor. Hopefully under Hudson he can stay healthy though. time will be the real test. If two years from now he hasn't gotten another stress fracture that would be great...but the injury bug can bite at any time. This is only his first race back.

Just think the Credit belongs to Ritz..he's done this level of things under all of his coaches.

I agree mrr... there's never been an instance where he ws healthy for a year+ and not meet or exceed everyone's expectations.. i think it's a credit to him as a competitor and that the real test of coaching is going to be when he is near his peak.. that will be when the coaching differences will become very evident. I do however think that hudson is a great coach and that it was a good move for ritz

great job!

Great job by Ritz. His first race on a rugged course pushing the best Non-african's in the world. He is certainly in very good shape. Brad's program seems to be working pretty well.

two things:

1. congratulations to Ritenhein, that is an awesome run.

2. I add my vote to refer to Ritz henceforth as Mr. Dathan Crackhome.

thankyou, that is all.

agreed

They misspelled his name in the article as Ritzenheim instead of Ritzenhein. "Heim" in German is "Home" in English.

So does that mean Ritzen is the German word for crack or is Ritzenheim as one word translate to Crack Home?

"Nach 6000 Metern war es dann US-Boy Ritzenheim"

US-Boy Ritzenheim!

They are gonna love this kid in the German speaking world.

He's the new David Hasselhoff.

Nice job Dathan.

Yeah that Italian article that the front letsrun page references sure was hard to translate... given it was in German.

Dathan Ritzenhein has tremendous heart and incredible talent to go with it, I hope he can stay healthy because he will definitely get better.

Is he one of the first Americans at that age to go to European X-Country in decades, anyone know of another American at that age competing/have competed X-Country overseas?

VIPAM