I really can't see him dropping Verzbicas in any kind of race and I see Verzbicas outkicking him the last 800m 6/10 times in a hypothetical xc race. We could argue His junior year(senior year) was more dominant than anyones plus he won every single title he went for. Same way we give Ritz credit for defeating the sub 4 miler and hall We gotta give Verzbicas credit for holding off a wide variety of talented runners across various distances guys like Cheserek, Gedyon, Oshier, Mudd, lutz, Futsum, Erassa. Sub 4 in the rain and 8:29 I will give Ritz credit for actually holding the 5k record but sub 4, 8:29 and a world championship clearly indicates he would be the superior 5k runner to answer the original question.
Imagine that 8:29 with super spikes.
Good points, I'd give Verzbicas 3 out 10 against Ritz in XC, everyone else since is at best 1 in 10 shot. Ritz would still be favored in my mind but Lukas would have been the only one that could have even realistically challenged him. Too bad Lukas didn't love running like Dathan did.
verzbicas was perhaps one of the most talented US high school runners i've ever seen. he went to run in college and did poorly and dropped out of school in the middle of a semester. it's clear that he is an academic idiot. he went back to triathlon and got into a career ending accident and nowadays, all he does is post conspiracies on twitter. thank god he isn't making big money like some of the pro runners are. he doesn't deserve the (physical) talents that he has.
German Fernandez was the best high school distance runner. 14:24 Woodward Park. 4:01 mile, 2 hour later 8:35 3200. All by himself. Pre super shoes. Hurt his foot for footlocker unfortunately.
And then 3:55 and 13:25 at 18 years old. If only the health was there …
I absolutely imploded on my final tempo run tune-up of the training cycle yesterday so I’m going into this year’s Turkey Trot with the same amount of confidence that I have in taking a scoop of my mother-in-law’s turkey stuffing lager that night. Both are probably going to result in utter disappointment and vomiting.
I absolutely imploded on my final tempo run tune-up of the training cycle yesterday so I’m going into this year’s Turkey Trot with the same amount of confidence that I have in taking a scoop of my mother-in-law’s turkey stuffing lager that night. Both are probably going to result in utter disappointment and vomiting.
Good lord, posted to the wrong thread. Sorry everyone but I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.
verzbicas was perhaps one of the most talented US high school runners i've ever seen. he went to run in college and did poorly and dropped out of school in the middle of a semester. it's clear that he is an academic idiot. he went back to triathlon and got into a career ending accident and nowadays, all he does is post conspiracies on twitter. thank god he isn't making big money like some of the pro runners are. he doesn't deserve the (physical) talents that he has.
That's a bit harsh, but basically true. He screwed over Oregon by ditching the team right before conference in an historically bad display of sportsmanship. His bike crash was unfortunate, and a career ender. And yeah, now he's basically a tin-foil conspiracy idiot. One wonders what would have happened with a few different choices..... a question I'm sure he asks himself on a regular basis.
verzbicas was perhaps one of the most talented US high school runners i've ever seen. he went to run in college and did poorly and dropped out of school in the middle of a semester. it's clear that he is an academic idiot. he went back to triathlon and got into a career ending accident and nowadays, all he does is post conspiracies on twitter. thank god he isn't making big money like some of the pro runners are. he doesn't deserve the (physical) talents that he has.
That's a bit harsh, but basically true. He screwed over Oregon by ditching the team right before conference in an historically bad display of sportsmanship. His bike crash was unfortunate, and a career ender. And yeah, now he's basically a tin-foil conspiracy idiot. One wonders what would have happened with a few different choices..... a question I'm sure he asks himself on a regular basis.
I think it's not harsh enough. The kid is literally being considered as arguably the most talented US HS runner ever, and he threw it all away in fantastically idiotic and foolish form. Not only burned the winning lottery ticket he was given in life but also let his whole team down. Guy deserves the hate.
5k cross country, yes. There are many guys who can contend on the track. Virgin, Rupp, Lindgren. I believe Ritz had the largest margin of victory at Foot Locker? Plus he easily beat Hall and Webb senior year. Third at world junior cross. Yes, I realize there’s actually an American who won world junior cross, but that’s when it was way less competitive with practically none of Africa competing?
In Ritz's defense, he had to race Bekele and a likely age cheat who ran 28:12. Pretty impressive what he did.
And Ritz (8:11 2-mile, 12:56 5,000m, 27:22 10,000m, 60:00 HM, 2:07:47 M) beat those guys who ended up running very fast too
Ritz also ran 14:10 for a full 5k at the michigan state meet, setting the national record for an XC 5k that stood for over 20 years till the Newberry Park boys broke it on a course a lot of people found suspect. His course record is better than the next best time by 36 seconds, with guys like Grant Fisher, Hobbs Kessler, Riley Hough, Carter Solomon, and Hunter Jones all on the all time list. The previous record had been set by his very talented teammate Jason Hartmann in 14:51 so he didn't just break it, he obliterated it.
this course is a joke, flat as can be.
The Michigan state meet course is fast, but certainly not "flat as can be." I think there's about 80 ft of climbing which is more than a lot of courses these days.
Do you guys think he had a better career than that of Verzbicas or the Young Brothers?
Easily. 13:44 in regular spikes instead of super shoes. I wish he took a crack at the 10k record. It's crazy he ran 13:44 in like 2001. Kids are still catching up to this even with all the performance and training upgrades. Lindgren was very impressive as well.
you got that right. lindgren in old fashioned spikes and dirt tracks. way slower then todays tracks.
Leo would have been better than all of them if he'd ran a 5k.
Lindgren was like 9 secs off the world record, Leo’s great but he ain’t beating that
“Leo’s great but he’s not beating that”
Lindgren himself isn’t beating that. It’s an inherently unfair comparison.
How much stock should we place in running close to the wr when the world record is weak? Obviously it makes sense to assess him within his era, but how does this accomplishment translate to today? He’s not running 12:44 no matter what.
Leo would have been better than all of them if he'd ran a 5k.
Pretty strange that Leo stayed stuck on running the 1500 his senior year. Very strange choice on his part to never run a 3200/2 miles or 5k his senior year.
L&L were planing on racing the Arcadia 3200 . . . but were banned from that race due to CA HS Fed rules regarding unattached runners . . .
however . . . Leo apparently chose to let Lex have the 5k limelight last spring . . .
and both seemed to be more interested in preparing for college running than chasing every hs record they could. . .
Verzbicas never ran faster than he needed to in cross, and when he did his best on the track he set the the two mile record at Pre. Verzbicas also had more speed than Ritz. German vs Verzbicas would have been great.
This is revisionist history. Verzbicas absolutely went hard for Craig Virgin's course record and came up short. He also failed to break Ritz's FL midwest regional record twice.
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