Who is the better pro/Olympic prospect? Nico Young or Katelyn Tuohy? I think you've gotta say the answer is....

iowakidscanrun wrote:

malmo wrote:

Rojo, act like you've been there before.

There have been dozens upon dozens of high school studs over the decades who never made the next step up. This years crop won't be any different. Some will step up. Most won't. Which ones will make it is unknown, and quite frankly, not even worth speculating about.

Why not simply live in the moment and appreciate the excellence in front of you today? It's easy.

Speed ratings? Ugh.

This ^^^^^^^

Yeah, not a great thread Rojo. Let's appreciate Tuohy's great accomplishment.

It seems the transition from high school to college to pros is far dicier for girls than guys.

Yeah good advice!

She looks really strong. Like she's got a great base and is very athletic. I think she'll do really well at the next level

Luv2Run wrote:

It seems the transition from high school to college to pros is far dicier for girls than guys.

Yes but it is also really dicey for guys also . Lets look at the NXN list

2004 Sean McNamara

2005 Kenny Klotz

2006 Steve Murdock

2007 Chris Derrick

2008 Reed Connor

2009 Craig Lutz

2010 Lukas Verzbicas

2011 Futsum Zeinasellaissie

2012 Sam Wharton

2013 Taylor Wilmot

2014 Tanner Anderson

2015 Casey Clinger Utah

2016 Casey Clinger Utah

2017 Aidan Troutner

2018 Liam Anderson

2019 Nico Young

versus

2004 Ramsay Kavan

2005 Betsy Bies

2006 Ashley Higginson

2007 Madeline Morgan

2008 Chelsey Sveinsson

2009 Katie Flood

2010 Rachel Johnson

2011 Sarah Baxter

2012 Sarah Baxter

2013 Alexa Efraimson

2014 Allie Ostrander

2015 Katie Rainsberger

2016 Brie Oakley

2017 Katelyn Tuohy

2018 Katelyn Tuohy

2019 Katelyn Tuohy

Neither group is exactly a murders row of olympians and NCAA champions. You will find that most of the really good NCAA runners were either footlocker finalists or NXN runners but odds are one of the people who finished 2-15th will do better than the winner are pretty high. After all you have a lot more shots for someone to have the big breakthrough.

Go into more depth. Drill down to the complete results of all of those races. One thing you'll notice is how many of those names you've never heard of again. Here's an example:

epicTCK wrote:

iowakidscanrun wrote:

This ^^^^^^^

Yeah, not a great thread Rojo. Let's appreciate Tuohy's great accomplishment.

Yeah, not great. She's so young. Just let her do her thing, enjoy college. If something comes of it, great; if not, she'll have a good college education to do a bunch of other stuff.

I imagine you feel good about your disclaimer. But if you were so concerned about these real human beings you would not pose such a question. The two are just high schoolers. I think the assumption by oat people on this site is that the subjects of the threads and posts do not read this. I believe putting this out there will eventually get back to both of the or their family and friends. Why even pose the question? Let them go to college and don’t add any more pressure on these kids. Get a life

Questioning whether the newly crowned High school national champs(one who won 3 times in a row) may have an Olympic future on a running forum is insensitive ?

FightFor15 wrote:

this post & this website suck.

I'm not going to apologize for analyzing the prospects of the top 2 HSers in the country. At Letsrun we celebrate the elite side of the sport and they are elite. If they don't want the scrutiny, then don't run the races. There is no mandate that they run in a free marketing event for Nike.

I didn't say Tuohy wasn't amazing. I've just consistently refused to join the hype train for the last 2+ years. After watching HS phenom after phenom not make it, after Mary Cain, I decided, "Enough is enough. I'm not going there again." People were going ga-ga over her and wondering why we weren't talking more about her. I was like, "Because she's a 15-16 year old HS girl." Now that she's come back to earth a little bit, people are mad that we even mention her.

But the reason why I came back here is I have an update from my original post.

The Tully Speed ratings for this year's race are out and Tully got a 163. In 2018, she won with a 167. In 2017, she won with a 172. Remember, each point is worth three seconds so that means that according to the Tully Speed Ratings, the Tuohy of 2017 would have beaten the Tuohy of 2019 by 27 seconds.

Rojo: I don't get why people think we put too much pressure on HS girl athletes to progress every year...? ? ?

Also Rojo: This entire post

I hate to agree with Malmo, but this response is absolutely correct.

In three years, we'll already have a dozen "is update" or "whatever happened to" threads on both.

There is zero way to tell which is going to be better. Bringing up Mary Cain, who is a totally different human than Tuohy, is the same as saying Young won't make it because Kai Wilmot didn't do anything after winning NXN.

And Tuohy has not come back to Earth. She hasn't lost a cross country race since 2016.

Or maybe we can just appreciate that Tuohy has been a great high school athlete, which remains true no matter what happens in the future. As to SRs (LOLL) maybe she had (gasp) a bad race in horrible conditions. And she still made history.

Distance runner is a meat grinder. Everyone recalls the fifth-grader Kelly Leak character at their school who was washed up before freshman year. Excellence in high school at cross country running is based on the very same dynamic. Some kids are at a peak, the likes of which many will never see at all, or ever again.

I ran into this story some time back. It looks at the final race at a Southern California Motocross track in the early-80s, and "where are they now?" LOTS went on to things motorcycle-related that are of note. Meanwhile, I can look at FL from 10, 5, even 2 years ago, and recognized hardly anyone.

Enjoy it today. While it lasts.

https://motocrossactionmag.com/looking-back-at-saddleback-park-from-37-years-ago/

Live in the today, enjoy their successes.

Also, to compare Tuohy's time from past years to Saturday seems a little strange. I don't like speed ratings anyway, but conditions were atrocious this year, and the girls literally had tough mudder conditions. Time will tell what any of these athletes will do, but I choose to appreciate the present successes.

What about the conditions of the race? I heard the conditions were pretty bad this year. I also heard she gained some weight and muscle so she could be building up for shorter races. You're also blaming them for running, saying that if they don't want the scrutiny then don't run. That seems like what any self righteous jerk would say. A lot of the articles and discussions tend to get rude and disrespectful on this site. If anyone know a better site, feel free to share it with me since I'm done with this one.

Raysism wrote:

German Fernandez and Mary Cain.

I know this was meant to imply the massive burnout of phenoms but both of these people did manage professional careers. Even though they didn't live up the impossible hype that surrounded them, they managed to run at the highest level. Put some respect on their names.

And on this subject, the Olympics are trash. Rancid, corrupt and drug-addled. Some of the biggest names in US track and field history, including Flo-Jo, Jackie Joyner and Marion Jones were PED takers. And don't even bring up the EPO fueled farce of the East African nations such as Kenya. It's a scam in track and field. I'm not going to judge anyone in this sport on whether they make the Olympic team or not.

Delete the above, thanks.